[SS 2.83] Bad Vibes (Part 2/4) (Patreon)

[Bind Resisted]

[Bind Resistance Lv.5]

Gelic was kind of surprised it gave any experience at all. The crudely drawn paltry Circle beneath her feet definitely wasn’t the work of a seasoned Summoner, or even someone who did well in art class. It was a miracle that it worked, and she didn’t end up stuck in transit between realms or something. Kind of a terrifying thought. Hopefully, there were some sort of protections in place to prevent that.

“Well, you don’t look like a frog,” was Giatour’s greeting. “Did someone have to kiss you so that you would turn back?”

As if that lovely joke wasn’t a great first impression, there was something quite off-putting about the man from the moment she laid eyes on him. There were a lot of little things: the stains on his shirt, his thick foggy glasses, the ratty hair that clearly hadn’t been tended too in some time. Not to mention the disgusting place where she found herself. To call it a shack would be generous, with just a cot in the corner, a crude writing desk littered with disorganized scrawlings, a broken door to the bathroom where some very unpleasant and ripe odor was coming from, topped off by a single lightbulb illuminating the place, dangling from the ceiling by its wire.

Yet none of it in particular was what really bothered her. Just a few months ago, anyone would have found her in similar straits, hell, maybe even worse. And she couldn’t judge the poor locale either. If Angelica had been kicked out back when she had no prospects, there was a very good chance that she would have ended up at a similar place.

So what was it that put her off? Maybe it was the way he was looking at her. It wasn’t how Summoners usually looked at Demons, either with a bit of fear or a domineering attitude. Nor was it really how a person would look at a cute animal they were admiring. The closest she could get to a similarity was how someone would inspect something they were quite interested in at a museum, studying it from top to bottom at every angle with their eyes. But even that didn’t feel quite right. She wondered for a moment if she’d accidentally put on her How Intriguing Rune and forgot about it, but nope. Whatever it was, no one had ever looked at her that way before, and she found it unsettling.

That alone was enough to make Gelic want to call it quits and end it there, but she was probably just judging him too harshly. As a fellow awkward creative, she should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe her opinion of him would change after they got down to business. “No kisses needed,” she replied, doing her best to keep her composure. “I was able to save myself.”

“Oh, a wonderful line.” He smiled at that, grabbed a piece of paper from his desk, and presumably jotted it down. “Good stuff already. Sorry for the mess, by the way. I don’t actually live here. It’s just where I come when I want to focus on writing.”

A chime went through her head once more. Another semi-lie. Maybe he really did live there and didn’t want to admit it, or visited often for other reasons he didn’t want to divulge. That was fine to move past for now, but if the lies kept compiling, that was another reason to just give up on this dude. Everything else seemed to line up, at least.

[Human | Alias: Giatour | Summoner Rank: Initiate | Abstainer]

“So what I was thinking was that we’d head out and go for a walk, see what we come across, what inspires me. I’ll come up with a few scenarios, and see how you’d tackle them. Watching someone like you in action should help me a lot with all the ideas in my head.”

Hmm, no lies that time. So it would seem his intent was genuine at least. 

“And if you help me out, I uhh, don’t have much of that Essence stuff, but I was thinking I could give you this.” He pulled out a pen from his pocket. It was somewhat fancy, but nothing that cost more than a few bucks, except for the bit at the end. There was a gem stuck onto the clicky top. “It’s a Retcon Rune. I have a better one now, so no point holding onto this one anymore.

“It lets you change stuff you did in the past, while leaving no trace that anything changed. So like in my writing, I use it to correct some errors after the fact. For my last series, there was a pretty bad, damning typo, so I used it to alter all the physical copies that currently existed, and acted like I had no idea what people were complaining about. This Rune wouldn’t be able to do much more than that though at its level. Luckily, there weren’t too many copies of it sold.”

Huh, another lie? A full one this time. Or at least that’s what the Skill told her. It wasn’t about the Rune or what it did. Apparently, that was all real and accurate, at least to the best of the man’s knowledge. What triggered the ding was him talking about the sales numbers. Either they were much higher than he was letting on, and he was trying to be humble, or he hadn’t sold any at all, and he didn’t want to sound like a complete failure. What a weird dude. Kind of relatable, but why bother when talking to a Demon. Whatever. That Rune, though…

[Fluid Muse Lv.4]

[New Rune discovered]

She Mused it immediately, before the chance slipped away. That made her wonder what sort of weird face she made, staring at the pen so intensely for a moment before acting aloof. Didn’t matter, because she snagged the prize, deleting her brief obsession with a particular octopus in the process. Interestingly, she suddenly understood the Rune a lot better than the others; its composition, the important bits, how it sort of all worked. The feeling wasn’t on the level that she could possibly conceive to a useful degree anytime soon, but maybe someday.

Gelic also considered Musing her Summoner, just to get to the bottom of some of his weirdness. But she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to understand him on such a fundamental, intimate level. Plus, that’d be like a super major invasion of privacy, and she’d feel weirded out if the same was done to her. Fortunately, as Fabrication, it wasn't super popular at all. Maybe coming off of Obsession Attunement was a more likely way to get it, but she hadn’t heard about that really at all either, so hopefully it was fairly unpopular as well. 

And… she also kind of didn’t want to waste a Muse slot. With this new level, she now had four available, but what if the dude had more Runes around. It’d suck to abandon one back before she could get home and draw it. And thankfully that was all she needed to have it for good, because without these tricks, she’d be clamoring to have such an ability. It sounded great. There was a bunch of early art she’d like to go back to and correct. But now she could act like it meant nothing to her. 

“Huh, why would I want something like that?” Gelic argued. He didn’t need to know she had any artsy inclinations, and Demons in general tended to not really care about Runes.

“Hmm, yeah, I guess you wouldn’t.” Giatour stowed the pen, but then continued to rifle through his pockets. “Honestly, I don’t really know what else to offer.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” she insisted. “I’d prefer not to make a Contract anyways. That way, if this doesn’t work out, we can call it off with no strings attached.”

“Hmm, alright.” He seemed surprisingly fine with that. “Well I thank you for your help for however long that may be. Ready to head out?”

Gelic’s mood and perspective on the situation skyrocketed the moment they stepped outside. Giatour’s shack was high up on a hill that had an amazing view of the sea just a short walk away, enhanced by the early morning sunrise. She wasn’t quite sure where they were, but had to assume it was still her world since he knew about the Malignant Geyser incident. Her fame likely hadn’t reached intergalactic levels yet. Just on the time difference, it would seem she was about as far away from home as she could get, the literal other side of the world, even farther away than the Middle-West had been.

“Let’s go this way first.” Her Summoner pointed in the opposite direction of the ocean, headed further up the hill. A shame, she wanted to stare at the pretty sunrise a while longer, and wondered if he regularly used it for inspiration. The property value of his place had definitely jumped significantly, and better yet, there was absolutely no one else around. Maybe this was some island, or just an unpopulated part of the coast. Definitely the kind of place to keep in mind for future castle building.

“So how would you get that?” After a bit of a hike, Giatour gestured to a fruit tree. “I see you have wings. Would you fly up? I’m just trying to get into your mind. How would Gelic solve this problem, simple as it may be?”

“Eh, I probably could.” She eyeballed the distance. “But my wings aren’t really great at verticality. I’m too heavy, I guess. Right now, I mostly use them to move around the ground quickly, or would use it to grab the fruit after I bounced up there.” She performed the act, jumping up, and using one of her wings to delicately wrap around and pluck a piece of fruit before landing back down softly. “Here.” She handed it over to him, and he took a bite.

“Mmm, thank you. I can’t remember the last time I ate something. Been so caught up with other stuff.” Yeah, that was pretty relatable. “So if you didn’t have wings, or couldn’t bounce, what would you do? You have magic, right? Mind showing me some of that?”

“Uhh, sure.” Gelic spawned an icy needle and sniped a stem, causing a second fruit to fall down right toward her. 

“Woah, ice magic, that’s pretty cool. How would you eat it, though? You have that pointy nose thing. Oh, right, you Demons don’t eat our food.”

“Oh, no, I do,” she mentioned. “I guess I could just try to suck the juice out of this, but more likely, I’d just swap bodies.” Gelic changed to the Puffball and chomped the fruit down in a single mouthful.

“Ah, that must be the fluffy Imp form I heard about. Yeah, you’re definitely the one my friend mentioned.”

“Was he at the Malignant Geyser battle?”

“Eh, nah I don’t think so, but he heard about you from someone who was.” Hmm, no lies, but that made it basically impossible to trace back. Kinda crazy that random Summoners talked about her to the point that this unafilliated Abstainer halfway around the world had heard about her. Giatour then pointed down the hill in a different direction. “Okay let’s move on.”

They both took a single step, but Gelic had to pause. Her entire body suddenly shivered, like a spear of ice had shoved through her spine. The heck? Suspecting Skin? If that’s what it was, the feeling was a far more intense reaction from the Skill then she’d ever felt. Out of caution, she spun in place, scrying in every direction for a semblance of a threat, but there was nothing at all anywhere.

“Something the matter, Gelic?” Giatour turned back to her. “You alright?”

“Eh, yeah, just felt a weird breeze I guess.”

“Heh.” That made him smirk, “You’re a weird one. Really interesting, but weird.”

They walked down for a while until the man gestured his arms grandly. “Alright, the next stage in the grand adventure of Gelic!”