The Laptop - Ch.43 - Day of Rest (Patreon)

By the time morning arrived I'd managed to get a pretty good sleep. It wasn't perfect, I woke up twice during the night thanks to nightmares about fighting more little green monsters. Over-all though I was generally feeling better than I had when my girlfriends and I turned in the night before.

Chels and Gwen were both in the process of waking too, and once the three of us were finally upright we got the fire going again so we could have some coffee. As usual our beautiful mage provided the cream, and I had to admit I was almost used to that already.

Then as the three of us sat quietly sipping our hot morning beverages the catgirl asked, "I guess I should get started on breakfast? We'll want to be on the move again before too long, right?"

Gwen made a face, but instead of responding she just quietly sipped her coffee.

After a gulp of my drink I suggested, "I think maybe the three of us could use a day off? I'm pretty sure we've been making good time, and we should still have a day of leeway before we're supposed to get to Hoag's Hole. So why don't we just stay put today? It'll probably do us some good, to rest and recharge."

Both my girlfriends were smiling before I even finished talking.

Chelsea nodded, "Good call. I know we're all physically healed, but after what happened yesterday we definitely need the time to recharge mentally."

"So what are we going to do to pass the time?" Gwen asked, like she was trying not to sound too suggestive or anything.

Needless to say Chelsea had some ideas right away, but I spoke up before the little catgirl could elaborate on all the perverted thoughts she was hiding behind her naughty grin.

"For one thing I need to check the laptop, to find out what the hell happened to 'safe mode'. And I'd like to have another look at the map, such as it is, to make sure we're still on the right track. And maybe see if I can find out more about those things that ambushed us? Incase we run into them again, I'd like to be better prepared," I explained.

Gwen reminded me, "You also promised to fix up my boot, and clean our gear. You should probably patch any holes in your gear too. And you were going to replace the arrows you used."

Then Chelsea asked, "If you're going to be abusing the inventory system then how about going a step further and summoning up something nice to eat? Since we're taking a one-day vacation, why not make it a little more enjoyable for all of us?"

"As for what else we can do with our time," Chels added with a mischievous grin, "I'm still excited to see you do some of that experimenting we were talking about yesterday. And of course I'd be happy to help out, in any way I can."

"Same," Gwen mumbled quietly as her cheeks coloured.

I felt myself blushing a little too, but I wasn't opposed to the idea. I glanced up at all the puffy white clouds in the sky then decided, "First things first. It's not exactly overcast but there might not be enough direct sunlight to charge the laptop, so I don't want to overtax the thing too much. Which means I'm going to take care of the important stuff before we start playing around with the other things."

After another gulp of coffee I extracted the little computer from my backpack, and even though it might not be that useful I still set up the solar panel. I figured some power was better than no power. My first stop was the character editor, so I could check that safe mode thing. And as soon as I saw it I frowned.

"It's not set," I stated. "I never turned it off after the encounter with your parents, but somehow it got un-set."

Chelsea's ears folded back and her tail twitched from side to side as she asked, "Can you turn it back on? And I guess we need to find out why it got turned off, otherwise it could happen again."

Gwen suggested, "Maybe it got reset when you edited your character sheet? You added the ranger archer class the day we got here, that might have done it."

"Maybe," I nodded. "I just turned it back on now, so all three of us should be safe again. I should probably review the documentation though, incase there's any clues in there."

I didn't do that right away though. For now I switched to the inventory editor, and went through Gwen's list applying the 'repair' function to her mage outfit. That mended all the holes in her boot, and removed any dried blood and dirt from all her stuff. When that was finished I did the same for Chelsea, then myself. And finally I conjured up a half dozen bodkin arrows to replace the ones I'd used during the fight.

While I was in the inventory program I decided to do what Chelsea asked, and after a minute or two searching through the database I found what I was looking for. A few keystrokes later three take-out breakfast meals appeared in front of us. They were typical fast food sandwiches, with a sausage patty, an egg, and a slice of cheese inside a toasted croissant. And each one came with a little box of hash-brown nuggets on the side.

"Ha!" Chelsea laughed as her ears and tail all stood up. She grabbed one of the breakfast meals as she said, "Not quite was I was thinking, but I'll take it. Thanks Lisa!"

"Yeah! Thank you Lisa," Gwen added as she helped herself to the second one.

I smiled as I put the laptop to sleep, "You're both welcome. I know none of us mentioned breakfast when we were talking about Earth food yesterday, but I figured it'd be a little treat for our day off."

The meal was warm and greasy, just like I remembered. It wasn't exactly great food, but it was kind of fun. A little reminder of home, and of the world we left behind. And it meant Chelsea didn't have to do any cooking this morning. Although she did put the pot back over the fire, so we could all have more coffee after we finished eating. And thanks to Gwen we had plenty of fresh cream to go with the hot beverages.

After breakfast I woke the laptop up again then sat in front of it with my second coffee in hand. I opened up the e-reader then loaded the SysAdmin Handbook, so I could review the details on that 'safe mode' stuff. And since I already knew where to find it, I didn't have to waste a lot of time before I discovered where I went wrong.

"Ah shit," I sighed. "It's basically my fault."

Chelsea frowned, "What do you mean, what's your fault?"

I grimaced, "It's the safe mode thing? I almost got all three of us killed. Gwen almost lost her foot. I screwed up."

"I'm sure it's not your fault Lisa," Gwyneth responded. "And none of us died, we're not even hurt anymore. So don't beat yourself up about it, ok?"

Chels added, "What exactly did you find? Because I'll bet Gwen's right, it's not really your fault."

I stifled another sigh as I relayed what I'd just discovered. "So like I said way back when I first figured this stuff out, 'safe mode' was designed to allow SysAdmins to work safely in dangerous realms. It protected me, and by extension both of you, from physical injury, attack, illness, even stuff like aging and all that? So whatever danger a realm presented, whether it was physical violence or poisons or diseases or radiation or anything else? Safe mode would basically give us immunity to all that stuff, for as long as we were in the hazardous realm."

"Ooohhhh," Gwen figured it out almost immediately. "It was tied to the realm. So when we came here, safe mode automatically reset itself?"

I nodded, "Yeah exactly. And I never thought to check it. I just assumed it was always active. Instead I left us vulnerable and in danger the whole time we've been on this world."

Chelsea shook her head, "That's not your fault Lisa. You're still learning this stuff, none of us expect you to know everything about it immediately."

"We also thought this world was safe," she continued. "None of us were expecting to run into a bunch of evil little murder-monsters."

"That's actually a good point," I frowned.

I ended up closing the documentation and opening the realm editor instead. I started scrolling through that, and reread all the stuff about Daearen we'd learned back when we first got here.

After a couple minutes I grimaced, "It doesn't actually say this world is safe. I'm not sure where we got that idea from? The summary stuff says the population is generally happy, and most inhabitants live peaceful lives. But that doesn't mean it's completely safe."

Gwen frowned, "Didn't Annie say we'd be safe here?"

"Huh maybe," I said as I switched to the connections app. I quickly scanned through the message history then sighed and shook my head, "She never said this world was safe. She said we needed to get off Earth-742, and that the three of us would blend in here. Other than that, she mostly just talked about getting to Hoag's Hole and that I'd get my answers there."

I sighed again, "Maybe we just assumed it? Or we conflated 'safe from the Earth security routine' with 'just generally safe'."

"That's not your fault either," Chels stated, cutting me off before I could blame myself again. "We're all new at this, and Annie hasn't exactly been forthcoming with the answers and explanations. We're learning, and making progress. So stop trying to blame yourself for every little setback."

I wanted to protest, I wanted to point out that almost dying in a goblin ambush wasn't what I'd call a minor setback. But I knew Chelsea would just get mad at me, same with Gwen. So I nodded slowly, "You're right. It's a learning experience, and the important thing is we're all alive, and we're safe now."

Both Chels and Gwen agreed with that. Then the tall sexy elf girl asked, "Were you going to try and find out about those creatures? Like if they really were goblins, or something similar?"

I grimaced, "Yeah I suppose I should try and learn what I can about them. Maybe there's other dangerous creatures out there too? I wonder if there's a way to research them all."

Unfortunately that sort of information wasn't easy to find. It was buried in the realm editor, several sub-pages deep under a 'supernatural fauna' heading. It was probably fifteen or twenty minutes before I finally located the information, then after reading through it I summarized it for my girlfriends.

"Ok so those things were basically this world's version of goblins," I told them. "They call them 'goblinoids' but same difference. According to this, we probably ran into a hunting party? It says they hunt in groups of twelve to twenty, but they live in communities of fifty to a hundred."

Gwen grimaced, "Crap. I'm glad we got the hell out of there when we did. I'd hate to think of what would have happened if the rest of them came down on us."

"Same," I replied with a little shudder. Then I continued, "It also says they're pretty weak, and kind of cowardly on their own? But they're dangerous in numbers, because they can swarm their opponents."

I finished up with the last bit of info, "It also says they usually avoid settlements, like towns and villages? But they will go after travellers and merchants when they're in the wilderness away from civilization."

"So they're basically just textbook goblins. Like we figured," Gwen summed it up.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Hopefully we won't run into them again. But if we do, at least they won't be able to hurt us anymore."

Chelsea asked, "Do you think we might run into more trouble? How far are we from Hoag's Hole now?"

That was the other thing I wanted to check, so I exited the realm app then opened the expeditions program and called up the low-rez ASCII map. Chels moved closer to look at it with me, then did some mental calculations.

"Looks like we're on schedule," she stated a moment later. "I'd say we're seventeen or eighteen kilometres away now. We'll probably find that river tomorrow, then we just follow it downstream and it'll lead us right to the village."

I agreed, "So if I haven't lost track of the days already, then we should reach Hoag's Hole the day before Annie's deadline. I sure hope there's an inn there. I've just about had it with sleeping on the ground."

"Same," Gwen made a face. "Maybe they'll even have hot water, so we can shower. I don't think I've ever gone this long without before, and it feels gross."

Chelsea smiled, "At least we're all gross together."

I rolled my eyes but didn't bother commenting. I figured we might be able to wash up in that river when we reached it, although I knew the water was probably going to be cold.

Then Chels asked, "So Lisa, what do you want to do next? We could get dressed, maybe go gather more firewood?"

"Or since you've already got the laptop out," she added with a sly smile, "How about the three of us stay naked while Gwyneth and I help you with some of that experimentation and self-discovery we were talking about yesterday?"

Her expression shifted to a naughty smirk as she continued, "You know I've got some excellent ideas, and I can't wait to share them with you."

My cheeks started warming up again, but I decided to roll with it. I nodded, "Ok Chels, what sort of suggestions? I'm not saying I'll actually try them all, but I'm willing to listen hear you out."

The little catgirl's smile got wider, while her ears and tail all stood up tall and happy.