After class, Robert took Amanda to the District 23 shopping mall. They teleported to a Samson shop that had recently opened there. Their first stop was the haberdasher. A few moments after the Android Zaifyr came to greet them.
"Mr Blaze, welcome! The clothes you ordered are ready."
"Excellent, excellent," Robert said. " what about the price?"
"I managed to get a bulk discount with my supplier. All 30 sets of clothes will cost you 9 million dollars."
Robert paid without blinking an eye. Amanda was impressed and happy.
Zephyr went to the back room and came back with a crate. " would you like to inspect the goods, sir?"
"I don't think you would be necessary, I trust you," Robert said with a smile.
"Oh, those two special clothes you ordered are also ready. I'll give them to you as a bonus."
Robert's first impulse was true to refuse. But he didn't. Something told him he would offend Zephyr if he did.
their next stop was the Aethericheart artificers. It didn't take long for Yolania to appear. The shopkeeper seemed very happy to see them.
"Robert! Did you finish the remaining five quests? The clients were really excited when they received the goods. Some even left a big tip for you. All anonymous of course. And we finished the expansible house box for normal-sized people you asked."
"whoa that's a lot," Robert interjected. He was even more astonished when he saw how big the tips were. " I am sorry but I didn't have the time to go after those five final bounties. I had some health issues but I intend to go after them next weekend."
"That's okay take your time. Most of those bounties are on the catalog for years because nobody Dared to Brave those realms."
"I can see why that would be the case. The descriptions for those realms especially the dangers don't make them too attractive for delvers. But I believe I will manage to catch those monsters. However, it would be nice if I had a better incentive," Robert said with a poker face. Yolania understood what he meant.
The Box habitat went into Amanda's ring and the money to Robert's bank account. It was too much to carry in person.
From there they went to The Tanner to get the treated moon Beast fur. The exchange was trivial but when Amanda saw the soft furs she squealed as she rubbed her hand on them.
*
*
They decided to have dinner at a fancy restaurant in District 25.
Robert's symbiote was already a formal suit but Amanda had to change each into an appropriate attire and that meant a visit to her mansion. Veronica helped her change. Robert used the opportunity to check on his creatures.
Poochline seemed sad but the others were fine.
The minotaurs are getting good at their instruments. He checked their mental patterns and saw nothing wrong. That experiment apparently had been a success.
Perhaps it was time to do another check and improve the work he did on Caroline's rambunctious little green guy. That would involve more brain mass and that would put the creature out of balance. Perhaps he needs to work on the Monster's muscle to support the added weight. His plans became more and more complex and he shoved them for later. Caroline hadn't complained so why make any dangerous changes.
What he really needed was to perfect his technique and maybe convert it into a real spell but that would take a lot of work and he didn't want to engage in a protracted project. His frantic hunting during the summer vacation the mental stress associated with the bounty and everything that happened at the end still troubled him.
*
*
On the weekend he took Amanda to Bhutan. She loved to wear local clothes. Robert constricted hair on Monastery etiquette. The same Monk from before greeted them. After they gave the monastery their offerings they were led to the Jungle Passage. Robert entered first and when he was out of sight from the passage he used his secondary Talent and shifted into a fairy.
The other fairies who were watching The Passage with bated interest quickly revealed themselves and rushed forward to greet Robert. They started to fire many questions at him about where he had been why he didn't contact them and where were the clothes he promised them. Robert did his best to explain it to them and to find an opening to tell them that the human friend was coming and they shouldn't fear her.
Eventually, the fairies' excitement cooled down. He became invisible and went outside to Usher Amanda in. The fairies went to hiding at the side of a human entering their realm. Robert reappeared sitting on top of Amanda's head. They heard sneakers[SIC] and giggles coming from the forest. Amanda smiled and took in the dangerous beauty of the bioluminescent Forest.
"you can come out she's a friend," Robert said
But the fairies were very shy. They gave them some time but they didn't come out. Eventually, Robert shrugged and said." golly, I will need to take these clothes back with me."
that was the trigger to make a deluge of fairies rush out of the woods. They complained and bickered demanding their clothes. It was an uncanny sight.
"Funny. I can understand them," Amanda said.
"You can?" Robert couldn't believe it.
"Yeah. Nor every word but my druidic attunement conveys most of it." She explained, then winked at the camera when Robert got distracted by some fairies who wanted him to sign a Minotaur armor T-shirt. "And this will be very plot-appropriate later on," she whispered to the audience.
What? Fourth wall, you say? Nah. It's the fairies playing a prank. On you.
Robert counted more fairies than the previous time. He supposed that they had gossiped and bragged to the other fairies of the realm and now these two wanted to get in on the deal. He had a really hard time locating the fairies he had spoken to before. On top of that, he didn't want to offend the other fairies as he knew they held grudges for a long time.
He told Amanda that she should wait for him near the passage gate and not do anything harsh or anything at all until he returned. The fairies wouldn't chase her outside the realm so she should be safe if she withdrew quickly.
Robert flew around the fairies looking for Spidersilk. He found her but she was wearing another dress.
Apparently, she had tried to make a better dress but didn't have enough spider silk to make a full dress like before. Robert had to be careful to not see what he shouldn't see. Because he was very sure the fairies did not have a concept of underwear.
And Amanda was keeping a close eye on him. The fact that she became possessive and jealous didn't Escape his perception but so far it didn't cause any trouble.
"hey, Spidersilk!" Robert called. " your new dress looks gorgeous."
"Thanks," spider silk replied. " I traded the old one for the talking ball."
"I need you to gather the fairies that made the deal with me. I didn't bring that many sets of clothes," Robert requested. He brought six more sets than he had promised, but it still wasn't enough."
Spidersilk laughed. "You don't mind these lazy moochers! They are here just to cause mischief and see if they can get something for free."
Robert looked around and saw a lot of fairies looking away with bashful faces. He took Spidersilk's hand and brought her back to Amanda. The fairy giggled as they flew.
"Would you want to be the first one to trade?" He asked.
"Hey, hello!" Amanda smiled and waved. "I'm Amanda!"
"And I am Spidersilk! Your mate just named me!"
The way she said it made the fact gain a lot of gravitas. The other fairies all looked at Spidersilk with awe. Then they started to cheer and call Spidersilk's name.
Robert was pretty sure he'd stepped on a landmine.
"Did he, now?" Amanda glanced around and then stared at Robert. "I am sorry for being a big dumb human, but what does it mean when a fairy names another?"
"Nothing!" Spidersilk said at once. "Wanna see? Hey you! I name you "Sir Stupid'," Spidersilk shouted at another fairy.
"No, you are 'Stupid'!" The other fairy shouted back.
They both blew raspberries at each other. The surrounding fairies laughed, hooted, howled, and jeered.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"See?" Spidersilk told Amanda in her squeaky voice. "Giving a fairy a name means nothing!"
Robert sighed in relief.
3, 2, 1…
"But when the other fairy accepts, it means we are married!" Spidersilk interjected.
All the fairies burst into raucous celebration. Some even sent sparkles of magic into the air creating illusions, music, and eerie-colored spheres that floated and collided making clear sounds like bells or chimes.
Serendipity reached its maximum level for stage one. All in a single go.
Amanda stared at Robert with pursed lips and a red face. Her eyes seemed to pop out of her orbits and her ears were a deeper red.
Robert saw a lot of Nature essence roil and cascade around her.
Then, she fainted.
*
*
Amanda O.S. service patch 20. Restoring latest VM image.
*
*
Amanda opened her eyes and saw a bioluminescent tree crown above her. She felt her own body and noticed she was clothed and under a blanket.
Groggy, she tried to remember what happened to her. A silly fairy with delusions of the highest order thought she was married to Robert. The other fairies started to cheer and that's when her druidic attunement went haywire. She got feedback so strong she went unconscious.
Okay. She seemed to remember everything correctly. A dive into her Ethercosm showed that the tempering technique had skyrocketed a whole forty percent. In the first stage. Not only that but her star also gained two percent. Goodness gracious. Could Robert marry more gorgeous fairies that made her feel inadequate and ugly so she could advance?
Wait. No. That was stupid. Shoo, stray thoughts, and shoulder demons.
She heard mewling meows. When she raised her head, she saw the bed was covered in kittens.
"What the…" she drawled in confusion.
Some kittens giggled. Then more kittens giggled. Others meowed at the giggling kittens to keep things in character. The first batch of kittens blew raspberries at the complaining ones. Chaos ensued as the kittens all started to brawl, patting each other with soft paws. They rolled around and Amanda almost died of cute overload.
*
*
This is a PSA.
Cute overload is a dangerous event.
Check with your doctor before exposing yourself to a bed with ten scores of brawling kittens padding at each other with soft paws while they make mewling meows and giggles.
Symptoms may include raucous laughter, loss of bladder control, diaphragm convulsions, a good mood, endorphins, strain on those facial muscles you don't use because you suffer from inbred RBF, your life sucking less, and good fortune.
And… back to our normal programming.
As normal as this chapter will ever be.
Look, I'm making no promises.
*
*
In an explosion of glitter and white smoke that smelled of good fruit sugars, a flock of fairies flew away.
The smoke cleared, leaving two kittens on the bed. One wore a formal suit, and the other a white dress that seemed to be made of rough spun silk. Spider… silk.
*Who could the two mysterious kittens be? Can you help identify them, children?" The narrator said.
"It's Robert and Spidersilk!" The children glued to the TV screamed. They had crayons in their ears.
They also begged for help because they were glued to the TV. It was one of those old boxy CRT models. But they weren't Boxxy, because that would mean it was a mimic and it would eat the children.
Remember, children, always check for mimics before gluing yourselves to the TV set.
This is another PSA, I guess.
*
*
"Robert, what is going on?" Amanda asked the kitten wearing the nice and stylish Italian suit.
Zaifyr only worked with the best. You should see the Roomba he kept in his shop. Not a single strand of lint on the floor. That Roomba was said to be divine.
Kitten-Robert meowed an answer. It made total sense if only Amanda could understand kittenish.
"In human language, please?"
Robert turned into his fairy form.
"You absorbed too much fairy magic," he explained. "The prankster fairies who knocked you out sent you this as an apology."
A bubble of Force magic floated from the ground.
Inside was a plant with big, wide, and outward-curved leaves spreading out in a circle right above the roots. Orange petals, curved and wide, formed a bowl above the leaves. In the middle of the petals rose the upper body of a small woman with brown skin and green hair.
Two delicate long blades of grass climbed up the sides of her stomach and joined at the top of her sternum right between the collarbones, keeping the relatively well-endowed plant-girl-creature PG-13.
*
"Despite nudity being allowed in PG-13 if it's a non-sexual situation." Someone snickered disdainfully.
"Hey, shut up. You are making it weird. And the nudity must be brief anyway. We are not having a Gardevoir situation, are we?"
"No, sir."
*
The bubble floated until it landed on Amanda's lap. Then it popped and deposited the delightful creature. Plant. Zoophyte. There. Nailed it.
The roots moved and lifted the zoophyte. The whole creature-plant was sixteen centimeters tall. She looked around and locked eyes with Amanda. Then she curtsied, holding two petals in her tiny hands like a skirt.
Amanda almost died of cute overload. Again. This time, however, she let the pent-up energy out with a crystal-shattering squeal.
The fairies sitting at the judge's booth on a nearby tree raised the placards. 10, 10, and 9.5.
The others in the audience clapped their hands and commented as they ate popcorn. Each had a single popcorn and not buckets, because they were fairies and a popcorn is to a fairy what a sandwich is to a human.
The popcorn vendor fairy was making a killing. An ancient microwave popcorn packet they bought for twenty-two dollars a box with thirty online (before the rift cataclysm) already earned them three seashells, four bottle caps, and ten paper clips.
It was like stealing candy from children. Especially easy because said children were still glued to the TV and with crayons in their ears.
All of their Halloween candy was already gone, stolen by bad fairies. They left nothing for the Jimmy Kimmel Halloween special "I ate your Halloween candy" segment, where the host encouraged parents to be assholes and commit "Moral Disengagement", more precisely, the "Moral Justification" subtype, to frame this cruel behavior as a sort of public service to allegedly toughen the children up.
*
*
Another PSA:
That's bullying, don't do it.
[Author's Note] MDW: seriously, check the article about "moral Disengagement" on Wikipedia or the Sprouts video in this URL: https://youtu.be/MSZR82W4lKI
*
*
Back at the bed-stage, Amanda stopped squealing. As a two-star Archhuman, she had quite high lung potency. That might be the reason the judges gave her such a high score.
"What are you?" She asked the zoophyte with awe.
"It's a Bonsai Rafflesia. A fae monster, not the plant. And she's yours," Robert said.
Amanda lifted the Rafflesia until they were eye to eye. The zoophyte had a pleasant smell. "Can you talk?"
She shook her tiny head. Then she opened her mouth. It had no teeth and her tongue was a tiny vine covered in red petals as tiny as a pinhead.
"Amanda," Robert called for her attention. "There's a fairy who is willing to teach you the Nature version of the beast bond spell."
For the next hour, Amanda received lessons on how to cast the spell using Nature essence. She could bond only with plants and zoophites, and the Bonsai Rafflesia was her first bond.
"You need to give her a name," Robert said.
The kitten in the white dress chuffed.
"I'll call her LiMeiLin," Amanda declared. LiMeiLin the Bonsai Rafflesia shook her leaves in delight.
With things returning to normal, Amanda looked around. Then she noticed that things couldn't go back to normal because they were far from normal.
"Why there's a bunch of children glued to a pre-cataclysm TV set?" She asked a forbidden question.
"Those are the lost spirits of naughty children that the fairies rescued from oblivion," Robert explained. And by "rescued", he meant kidnapped. Or ghostnapped, because they were dead when the fairies caught them. And they were also naughty. But in life. "I also have no idea why they are that way but I don't think the explanation would make sense.
"Okay, I guess," Amanda said with a shrug. "Where did this bed come from?"
"What bed?" Robert asked.
Amanda looked again. She was sitting in a moss mound with a leaf covering her. She made a puzzled expression.
"Did I dream all this? Am I dreaming?"
"No. I think you are having some trouble processing everything. Most things were real, except for the fourth wall breaks," Robert explained. "Those are non-canon."
"Wait, what wall?"
"Never mind. Fairy magic transcends reality and fate. There are entities beyond our comprehension that might be watching us right now. You don't need to concern yourself with them, they can only affect us indirectly through ratings and reviews."
Robert hoped these were good ratings and reviews but it made only so much difference. It's not like this author cared anymore for the bad ones. He had suffered in the past but now he cared little for them as he wrote a slapstick comedy chapter.
A META slapstick comedy chapter.
"Can we go home?" Amanda asked. The surreal experience was too much for her.
"Sure. I finished trading the clothes for magical talking balls. We can go."
"Wait, magical…" Amanda started to get in that mood she usually got when magical talking balls were involved.
"Yeah, we can talk more about that later. Not here, though."
"Sure."
LiMeiLin made a sound like leaves ruffling. It was obvious how she did.
Amanda stood up and stretched. LiMeiLin was firmly attached to her right shoulder. She could tell that the Bonsai Rafflesia was happy.
Robert flew up, carrying the mysterious kitten in a white dress. They settled on Amanda's other shoulder.
"It's Spidersilk!" The naughty children with crayons in their ears complained instead of checking for mimics.
"Thanks for reminding me," Amanda told the children and directed her next question at Robert. "What was that about a marriage?"
"It's not legally binding, unwitting, unknown, and unconsummated. Basically, a delusion in the tiny empty head of a loose-tongued, airhead fairy."
"Meow! (I'm not loose-tongued!)" Protested said shapeshifted not-loose-tongued airhead fairy with an empty head.
Amanda snorted. "Unconsummated. Go ahead, I'll wait."
"Fairies don't have sex," Robert stated.
The fairies gasped.
The children gasped.
Spidersilk gasped.
The TV set gasped.
Amanda squinted.
"What is sex?" Some fairies asked. Other fairies whispered in these fairies' ears. "Oh. Yeah, no, we don't."
"Eww," the children wondered why would someone want to get stung by a bee.
"Meow! (I'm your fairy guide then! We're divorced now.)" Spidersilk meowed.
"What did the cat say?" Amanda asked.
"She said it was a joke," Robert lied.
Amanda didn't respond.
"About time you get a fairy guide," Blossom agreed.
"I think Amanda needs to be the bigger woman," One fairy commented.
"So true," another fairy reacted.
"Isn't she already five times bigger than Spidersilk?"
"Hey, shut up."
"YOU shut up."
"Shut up the both of you, I'm trying to watch the drama. Hey, vendor, I'm out of popcorn!"
"Eat the kernel skin." Some fairy suggested.
"You savage!" Another protested.
"Popcorn are one shirt button each now," the vendor said.
"What? That's highway robbery! Back in my day, a shirt button bought a whole chocolate square," the buyer protested.
"Bah, you were swindled then. I could get a Toblerone wedge for a shirt button," Boasty Fairy complained.
"Before or after they were hit by shrinkflation?" Economist Fairy asked.
"African or European shrinkflation?" British Humorist Fairy asked with an accent.
"Guys, guys, you're missing the action. They already made up."
Amanda and Robert (human-sized) were kissing.
"Eww," the children eww'd.
Amanda had LiMeiLin on her shoulder, while Robert had a kitten wearing a white dress stuck inside his breast pocket. Who could that kitten be, children?
"We're not playing that anymore," the children glued to the TV set with crayons in their ears replied. "It's boring now."
"How the hell did they make up?" The fairies clamored. They were distracted by the popcorn price debacle and missed it.
Robert and Amanda left the realm. Robert had thirty Prime Vestiges in his ring.
"And yes, we're going to reveal the Talent and Affinities of all thirty. Don't miss the next chapter," Epic Trailer Voice Guy said.
The fairies dispersed because they wouldn't be subject to highway robbery again. From now on, they will only buy popcorn if it costs at most two strands of pocket lint. The ones wearing the new symbiote clothes smugly said they would never get swindled. Little did they know it had already happened.
And so, everyone went on their merry way, minding their business.
"Hey, what about us?" The children asked.
The TV set screen turned on, revealing sharp teeth and a purple tongue after a burst of static. Then the TV set ate the children.
...
Always. Check. For. Mimics.
I tried to warn them but they couldn't listen.
They had crayons in their ears.