Our party wakes up to find various Draconiacs, and several dragons napping amidst the resources we’d set out down here, several sleeping on piles of coins. Oh, I think I understand now why dragons have hoards of coins. Not much else can hold a firm shape to lay down upon, under the weight of a dragon. Well, that makes sense. No wonder Lil’s mom is atop several piles. We mostly left coins and paper out here, while we mostly summoned the gems over in Mount Verdimenn.
Kinzul quietly transforms into her human form in a single smooth motion, and Lil follows suit. Our Lady holds a finger to her lips, indicating to not disturb the sleeping amongst our allies. She’s so very empathetic. I worry what side of her I will see in two to four hours when I master the detect thoughts spell though. I sense unease about her, and sadness at the thought of what I will come to witness.
We make our way back into Mount Verdimenn, and open up the most necessary tunnels with stoneshaping magic. I try to find a central location for Luni’s shop stall, so we can finally get to testing it out, and starting to really get going with the respawn node planting. Once it’s placed, we use stoneshaping magic to create a bunker around it, making it almost inaccessible save for one small, hidden, lockable path, and heavily fortified under incredibly dense stone.
Grinning like a loon, more excitedly than I’ve seen her in so very long, Luni rushes behind the counter of her stall, and calls out, “Good morrow fair travelers, how may this humble shopstress serve you today?”
Placing down several coins, smiling brightly at Luni, I say, “Hi there Lu, I’d like an apple please.”
The coins begin to derez, their polygons floating away into nothingness in the air. In the span of a few minutes, the opposite occurs as polygons begin to form a massive apple as juicy and delectable as any I’d ever seen. Luni forgets one of the aspects of the shop as she reaches for it, and her hand passes right through the apple. I pick up the apple and flash her a grin before bringing it to my mouth, and grasping it in my teeth.
Leaning towards Luni, she squeals in delight, and leans in to share a bite of the apple as I bite out of it. Teuila, not one to be left out, crams her face between ours, also going for a bite of the apple. Since it’s seeming to become a family affair, Lil joins closest to Luni, leaving only one small space left on the apple between me and Lil. Kinzul sets her teeth firmly into this tiny location, and wraps her lips delicately around the pierced skin as juice begins to dribble free. Those perfect, smooth, supple lips of course contact mine and Lil’s, with such little space, and Lil rolls his eyes at me, as we all take our shared bite of the giant apple.
There’s a simultaneous moan of bliss from the three of us least used to eating rocks and minerals as Teuila, Luni, and I chew on the deliciously juicy apple flesh we’d pulled away with our teeth. I flash Lucky a querying glance, but he stops wagging his tail when I offer him a bite of the apple. I rub his skull instead, and he returns to wagging his tail.
Kinzul comments, “Remarkable, simply remarkable. It is a shame that it took minutes to manifest, but I assume it would take the same time if I were instead to ask for a bushel, or crate of produce?”
Luni nods enthusiastically, and leaps to hug and kiss Kinzul enthusiastically, seemingly forgetting herself. Luni has always been immensely excitable about the prospect of owning and sharing a shop and everything to do about it, but I can’t tell which of the two women are more surprised, Luni, or Kinzul, when Luni is draped about Kinzul’s neck. Luni squeaks meekly, and quickly shuffles back. Before anyone’s emotions betray them, I flash a look towards Luni and flick my brow towards the stall. Luni quickly nods and resumes her place as shopkeep.
Placing down a mound green pieces of paper I know to be hundred dollar bills, I take a gamble as I ask, “Luni, I’d like something that can help us determine your available shop catalogue.”
There are several surprised glances and brows curiously raised at my statement. Apparently the system behind the shops from the world of Can’Z’aas is able to respond to my esoteric request, because several hundred dollars derez, leaving plenty of change. What begins to appear however shocks me to my very core.
That is a smartphone. That is a near-twenty-twenties model smartphone, missing a rear casing, a memory card, a sim card, and a battery. I—. I don’t know how I know this. I don’t understand what this information is. Luni looks aghast, and I think she’s trying to talk to me in thinkspace, pleading me to stop thinking, but I can’t stop staring at the smartphone. The rest of the universe quiets and darkens. The phone occupies the only senses currently available to me. This was not in Luni’s catalogue on Can’Z’aas.
The shop system only provided this much, which means Luni’s catalogue doesn’t carry the rest of the requisite pieces. I’ll have to take stabs in the dark, with everyone here, maybe some other members of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, maybe some of the untitled, un-Aliased Draconiacs and dragonkin under Kinzul’s protection. We’ll need battery banks that can withstand lightning strikes, charging cables, batteries, a wireless cash register. I—. I don’t understand. How can these Fakeworld things be real? How can I know a time period in which a version of them existed in a specific way? I relent, and struggle to fight my way back to the true reality, to my loved ones, in our small shop bunker.
Luni looks incredibly fearful, and sad. The worry drawn across her face breaks my heart. I try to reassure her, “Don’t worry Lu. No exploding brain yet. Honestly, didn’t even hurt, or erase anything, as far as I could tell. We need to cycle shopkeeps though. This thing alone won’t get us what we need to stop flying blind. The shop system knew it existed, and knew it would help, so it knows that the rest of the parts we need exist, they’re just not in your catalogue.”
Luni nods feebly, and Kinzul raises an eyebrow at my assertion. I continue practicing runes for the thought detection spell, as I have been since she first ordered me to prioritize it, always in the back of everything, behind, under, around all other events, practicing runes until I’ve used up at least six hundred S P in a day. I nod firmly to Kinzul, reaffirming my assertion, and I flick my head towards Luni’s position.
Kinzul wears a mildly shocked expression on the beautiful features of her perfect, picturesque face as queries, “You’d like *me* to tend the shop stall?”
I flash her my best smile as I plead, “If you could please do us the honors, for even a few minutes Lady Kinzul. I hope I don’t offend you in the asking.”
Kinzul smiles my way as she replaces Luni. She responds, “It’s not that, it’s that I’m simply not from your world. How are you certain it’s going to work? You are of course welcomes to my shop, beloved Schism.”
Luni and Teuila nudge me repeatedly, and send me private telepathic winks, and suggestions to order things like kisses or suggestive apparel from the shop.
Trying not to frown at Lu and Te, while shaking my head I chuckle, answering, “I’m not, but—. Lady Kinzul, I would like something that can help us determine your available shop catalogue.”
Sure enough, more of the hundred dollar bills disperse into the digital aether, and several very important pieces of equipment appear. A large set of batterybanks, solar panel assemblies, and a solar generator. It isn’t quite the direction I thought we’d be going in, but it’s progress. It also confirms my suspicions that Lady Kinzul’s shop will be of the highest tier of quality, alongside Luni’s. The equipment is all in impeccable condition, pristine, perfect, unblemished, and of the highest grade materials. Hopefully we can get her back down here some point after we’ve succeeded in piecing together all the necessary bits to get this up and running.
I ask, “Lil, can you attend the shop for a second, then go take all this solar stuff out there to set it up? There’ll be instructions, and you might even be able to begin charging it with your Alias.”
In his lanky, still semi-androgynous human form, Lil bounds to the other side of the counter, hugging his mother as she leaves. Lil then chirps, “Sure thing pal. Welcome buddy! What can I getcha?”
I repeat the same request as I’ve been using, trusting that the system isn’t just screwing with me. The item that arrives causes my gut to twist up in knots at its implications. It’s a necessary piece, but Lil’s shop containing the memory card brings back a horrible memory for me. He was influenced at the time by the red eyes, but he accused me of thinking of him as nothing more than an object, a data object, just data.
My mind suffers after thinking of the red eyes, thinking back to all the times it had hounded me throughout my life on Can’Z’aas, all the way to my very first day alive, Day One. At that, I go tumbling, spinning into empty space, silently screaming, whimpering as my trauma trigger hits me full blast. My vision tunnels to the tiniest point, and my tinnitus races screaming to the fore of my senses. My sight is replaced by hallucinations of every surface spreading open in the approximation of fanged maws that grasp at me, that rend me, that tear me, chew me up and spit me out.
I know that my muscles spasm, and I likely fall, because I feel traditional, real pain on top of the psychological pain the unreal attacks inflict upon me. I experience the pain of that blue sphere tearing into my arm, moments after I started existing, confused, alone, terrified, and lulled by its seeming harmlessness. I—.
I, after quite some time, trapped in my memories, eventually come to. I find myself fetal on the ground, and everyone is gasping for breath, even Lady Kinzul. I’m lightheaded, dizzy, delirious, and have a lump on my skull from where I’d fallen against the wall. Lady Kinzul has one hand clenched, resting upon her breast as she finishes struggling to right her breathing, calming herself. My tinnitus is still ringing loudly enough that I can’t process the sound of everyone’s heavy breathing. It takes several minutes for all of us to resume normal functions.
Lady Kinzul comments, “Schism, my beloved young Hero, to think that your own mind has been turned so thoroughly against you, at the hands of our enemy. I am sorry, Sun, Muse, Tenith, Hunter, for attempting to bring you along as I struggled to grasp Schism’s mind, to free it from the clutches of fear and doubt. Schism, we shall see Sponge before this day is through, if any are will—“
My entire party, Lucky barking included, interrupts to offer, “I volunteer!”
I frown as my eyes wet with tears. I mutter, pleading sadly, pausing a long while between certain words, “Guys, I, I can’t do that, to you.”
Lady Kinzul, her face full of mercy, compassion, and understanding comments, “No, I don’t suppose you could. You wouldn’t inflict even a fraction of this upon anyone. I vow to aid you against this somehow my Schism.”
After Lil puts two and two together, from the memory card, and what he was able to experience of my trauma, Lil, his lips quivering, leaps over the counter to tackle me now that I’ve finally regained my footing, and he blubbers while hugging me tightly. His reddish-skinned human form’s adorable, slightly masculine leaning, androgynous face is covered in tears as he wails, “I’m so-ho-ho sorry-he-he. Buddy, those, hic, weren’t my, hic, words! Ple-he-hease forgive me-ee-e.”
Oh, my dear sweet Lil buddy. We went through this once at the waterfall. I kiss Lil softly on the forehead, then repeatedly about his face before brushing away his tears. I rest my forehead on his while cupping his head with my hands. I try to absolve Lil, “Lil, I know buddy, I’m so sorry that my brain did that. It wasn’t you. I don’t hold it against you. I never did. You know that. It wasn’t you. I was reminded of—. I can’t say, or I’ll spiral. It wasn’t you. I love you Lil. I love you. You’ll always be my best buddy. Always. I love you to the ends of the world, and beyond. Heh, literally, right pal?”
Lil chuckles a snotty, blubbery chuckle, loosing mucus towards my chest as he nods. Snot and spit bubbles pop, and both of us chuckle at how gross it is, trying not to get hung up on the display of vulnerability. Luni thankfully taps us with the soap stone. Normally I wouldn’t want company for this, but I tilt Lil’s chin up so that our lips meet. I let my eyes query his for permission, and his eyes give their consent, or perhaps it’s the minuscule nod of his head that signals, but I feel his consent, so I kiss him softly for a long while. I need him to know how much I love him, and I don’t know how else to express it.
I’m not great with nurturing the bonds of our friendship, and my love language is physical affection, and I love Lil beyond all doubt. I would die if I hurt him. Quite literally, my heart had given out when I thought I’d done an unforgivable hurt to my best buddy. My eyes wet with tears as I try to pour all of my love into a simple act of affection. I try to pour all the affection from the alternate timelines in which we fell in love in the Temple of Time. I try to convey somehow, just how important Lil is to me, that my entire Rayileklian journey had been about redeeming myself to him, about getting back to him, about finding our way home, in large part, for him.
The stunning onyx-orbs of Lady Kinzul’s eyes mist up and let loose single tears to stream down each of her exquisite cheeks that round out her marvelously resplendent facial features. I loose a short chuckle at a thought that I’ve half a mind to believe Kinzul might have felt my love for Lil more than Lil did. She is keenly empathetic, and deeply in tune with my mental monologue.
Lil sniffles and hugs me tightly as he rests his head on my chest before working through his sobs to apologize again, “Partner, I’m so sorry. I knew you loved me. I did. I love you too. Best buds, pals forever. I’m sorry I did that to you, that I made you feel those ways. Also, um, sorry that I’m not the same Lil from those other timelines. It’s a different kind of love than we have, I think. Right?”
I flash Lil a half smile that he probably can’t see from his position with his face on my chest as I respond, “Yeah, it’s a different kind of love. It’s okay. We don’t need to feel that kind of way about each other. I’m sorry if kissing you wasn’t the best way to communicate how I felt buddy. I hope it was okay.”
My best buddy looses a half laugh and responds, “Of course it was okay pal, you’ve got real soft lips, they’re nice for kissing. I get why you and Gal-Pal, and It’s-A-Secret are doing it all the time. You don’t have to kiss me though if you don’t feel that way about boys.”
I shrug helplessly as I wear a half smile, unsure how I feel on the matter. I know that visually, aesthetically, my eyes are drawn to, attracted to feminine and androgynous forms. Lil presents as slightly masculine-leaning but androgynous in his human form. I don’t know if I have a “boys or girls” switch, since I don’t have the biology for a certain type of attraction. All of us save Kinzul, well, Kinzul’s human form too probably, could walk around naked, because we don’t have reproductive biology. Uh, sorry for that series of thoughts everyone.
There’s a round of hesitant chuckling from everyone, save Kinzul. Kinzul simply sniffs once, and dabs each of her cheeks, to dry the tear that had rolled down either one. Our Lady crosses the room towards me, and cups my cheek from behind Lil, towering over us. Her thumb brushes my cheek tenderly as she smiles sadly down into my eyes while I gaze up at her.
Telepathically, Lady Kinzul reaches out to me privately to state, “I know you will balk at the implication, but I am so glad that it is amongst you and yours that I leave my son when I perish. I will leave loving him up to all of you, and I will go, un-regretfully assured that you will make up for what love I won’t be around to bring him, to share in all his joys yet to come.”
I frown in the private telepathic bond, because Kinzul is right, I dislike the implication. She’s an ageless, possibly immortal dragon, and—. I don’t want her to go. Ever. I gulp back a sob that catches in my throat and blink back tears. Hell’s bells, I—. I weep for a while longer yet, as we return to reality, simply gazing into each other’s eyes while I hold Lil, who alternates between sobbing, blubbering, chuckling, and nuzzling my chest. His emotions cycle back and forth for a while yet, as he tries to move past a reopened wound, a previously long-healed hurt.
Stroking the back of his head, with surprisingly auburn hair, the color of which Lil seems to be able to change on a whim, I whisper comfortingly, “We’re okay. We’re okay. We’re all okay.” I’m not sure which of us I’m trying to convince however.
I mumble my apologies, “Sorry everybody, we got kind of off track because of me and my stupid—. Yeah, I know, don’t self-deprecate about it, sorry. I love you all though. Truly. Yes Lucky, especially you too buddy. All of you in the most special of ways. Let’s maybe please get back to figuring things out, for every advantage against the upcoming apocalypses? Please?”
Every head in the room nods in assent. We get back to the task of finding the supplies necessary to be able to browse shop catalogues. Teuila’s shop provides us with cords and cables of a mediocre quality, not exactly what I was hoping for, but still necessary. I sigh, pondering if Lucky could somehow run the shop. He consents to trying, but it doesn’t seem to work. This leaves us needing to reach out to other members of the Onyx Dawn, or the many other individuals living within Kinzul’s domain.
I sigh, disappointed, as I was hoping to be able to piece this together today. We still need a USB charging bay that can plug into the solar battery banks. We need a battery and SIM card for the phone, we might even need an entire PC and a PC setup to jailbreak the phone if it tries to boot requiring a connection to a cellular service provider. We need a wireless or bluetooth register, and possibly a hard drive or components for that, and more that I might not be thinking of. A very worrisome fact is that I don’t know where all of this very specific information comes from.
I ask my party, “When Kinzul and I go to interrogate the prisoners, can you guys gather some people to test out the shops? Either you ask the shop owner, or get surrogates to say specifically: I’d like something that can help Reggie Shellcracker determine available shop catalogues. The shop might know that only I understand all this stuff, and might not provide the necessary pieces otherwise. Te, maybe ask the Dormir, Lil, maybe the twins, Lu, do you have any friends amongst the Order? Would you be comfortable trying to convince Nala?”
Luni looks thoughtful when I ask her about friends amongst the order, but then starts giggling and shaking her head vigorously when I ask her about trying to convince Nala. It seems Nala has a bit of a reputation as stubborn, and antisocial. I can definitely see where she gives off those vibes. It’s honestly probably exactly the same reason that she tolerates my presence, or company. We’re both antisocial introverts deep down, so we don’t do the majority of the things that other people do that trip our various insecurities or divergent tendencies.
Half frowning, I remark, “Okay, it doesn’t really matter who, because it could literally be anyone that has a catalogue that might possibly have the missing pieces, or we might simply not have anyone left alive whose shop carries what we need. I’ll maybe bring Nala down myself personally later this eve or something. I’m sure I could get her fascinated by the small trove of scrolls, the few magic books, and other stuff we’ve unloaded, not to mention all the magical trinkets, and supplies, since she told me about her untapped ability and desire to tinker. She’s an artificer, and no one’s been able to put that to use.”
Kinzul looks moderately surprised, and I’m surprised that she’s surprised, so she clarifies, “I hadn’t known Nala had any unmet desires. She speaks so few words when I am near. I feel remiss in not having addressed these concerns of hers.”
Frowning, I offer, “No offense Lady Kinzul, but you are fairly imposing, and when we met, you basically told her to shut up. Sorry, I mean, she was kind of backtalking to you, complaining about not wanting to have been helping, but that’s because it was an area outside the library, outside her comfort zone, you made her face the situation she hates most.”
Kinzul nods appreciatively, her gorgeously flowing cascade of raven hair shifting with the motion. She offers, “I suppose I had not taken into account how such a thing might affect her. I merely wanted someone I trusted implicitly, who was not one of my combatants, as I did not want to risk injury or death to either mine, or the two of you. I wasn’t certain that if you saw combatants, if you would struggle. We were near Ka’thuul and her followers enough, that you had to appear as captives.”
Kinzul tries to explain further, “If a fight broke out, I would have trusted Nala to flee, to leave it to me, unlike most of my fighters. Since you had dispatched Yisstendahl with nearly nary an issue, it seems my fears were warranted that one of my beloved Order may have been slain if they’d engaged with you. It should have been obvious to me why Nala was increasingly rude that morning. I shall endeavor to make it up to her at some point.”
I try not to smile or chuckle as I respond, “To be fair, Nala does have a tendency to grate on people at the best of times, and she admits it herself, and dragging her away from the library wasn’t the best of times for her. She wasn’t her best self. It’s why I think I’ll probably have to make it a solo mission to convince her, and we’ll read in silence on the way down. Or perhaps she’ll continue a history lesson for me. I’m—. I’m sorry for chastising you about chastising one of your followers. That was rude and presumptuous of me.”
Exquisite, delicate lips upturn in a wry smirk upon Kinzul’s dazzlingly alluring face as she chides, “I thought perhaps there was a hint of irony in our exchange just now.”
I can’t help the half laugh and the wide smile as I nod in agreement. I don’t know how to love someone more than love, so I’m uncertain how to express the emotional attachment I have to Lady Kinzul. I want a forever with her, as much as I want it with Lu, Lil, Te, and Lucky. As I continue to stare into her eyes, Luni and Teuila begin waggling their brows at me from behind her, and the suggestive expressions send my mind wandering in the wrong direction, down Kinzul’s sleek, slender, delicately curved neck, and—. They each perform the hourglass motion exaggeratedly around their own curves, directly behind Kinzul. Those butts. Err, they are butts, meanies.
Teuila and Luni burst into a fit of the giggles as I struggle not to ogle Lil’s mother’s impressive, perfectly sculpted physique, and its alluring, magnificent curves, and all her other impeccable features. I groan in exasperated embarrassment, and Lil makes a face of distaste at my train of thought. I shut down our telepathic network temporarily as I turn my gaze away from everyone.
This is really not where I wanted the thought train to go of how to define my love for Lady Kinzul. I don’t want to basically be a prisoner of what amounts to lust. I don’t want it to be tainted with attraction that borders on the obsessive. Hell, I don’t want it to be based on attraction at all. Worse, the type of embarrassment, and type of attraction, and lust, is from stupid Fakeworld memories, and them capitalizing on those vulnerable memories hurts me deeply, for quite a number of reasons.
I’m actually more than a little bit upset about it at this point, and we’ve got other things to do, so I march out of the bunker, grumbling to myself. I don’t want to hurt Luni and Teuila’s feelings by being upset by their teasing, but it’s happened a bit too often, around people too important for me, at times I needed to not be distracted by such thoughts lately. I sniffle, upset at myself for being upset at them. Thankfully, they give me some space, and Lucky is the first to follow me out of the bunker. I scratch the top of his skull as we walk away towards our vaults.
I allow myself to cry a few tears as I try to strategize for how the rest of the day is going to be. There’s other things I wanted to buy from the shops too, stuff I knew was in the shops, but I feel sick to my stomach right now from teasing that preys on feelings from human societies that I was never a part of. Feelings I only have because of my broken, buggy, mysterious memories, that I’ve had throughout all the ages of all my lives. I hate myself a bit for being so upset about this, for feeling hurt about something that’s so benign.
I can tell that Luni and Te likely look, and feel stricken, from my sudden abandonment of the psychic network. I don’t think I’ve ever shut them out before, from any version of our bonds. I only even know how to do it with this one right now, because of having my brain broken by exploding like a blood balloon yesterday. I feel more like crap by the second for each passing moment that I’m denying them our bond. I hate it, and I’m starting to resent them for making me feel bad about feeling bad about them feeling bad because they hurt me. This sucks!
I’m sure Lu probably has some secret backup psychic network and she’s probably spying on my brain to make sure I don’t go too off the deep end, or accidentally figure something out that I’m not supposed to. God that’s such a pessimistic, cynical, horrid way to look at the things Luni has done for us, for me. I feel like absolute, utter trash for thinking that about her, and I resent her, for me feeling like trash, because it makes me feel like I can’t criticize her at all. None of us are perfect. I need to be able to criticize and admonish them when they go too far. It needs to stick.
I’m upset with myself because of how darkly cynical my planned comments to them are coming out though. The hurt has quickly festered and spiraled, to the point that I might blow up at them, instead of rationally, calmly communicating something like, “I felt hurt because you leaned into the teasing at a point when I was feeling vulnerable about something important, and it wasn’t the first time recently.” I feel like instead I’d say, “You both suck, teasing sucks, knock it off, leave me alone.”
That’s the last thing that I want. Hell, that’s not even the right phrasing. I don’t want that at all. Friggin’ hell. I need someone I can talk to about this. I—. Did I get turned around? Whatever, maybe going for a walk will do me some good. Who could I even talk to though? I don’t really have friends outside my inner circle. Nala, Xayla, part of the Paradox Dormir, and that’s it. I think.
Talking to Nala about this would be a disaster. Xayla is a dragon of few words, who has a heap of hurt on their plate that they’re not even beginning to be able to deal with, and their sister Ixeyla was right, Xayla needs a reliable friend right now, and nothing else. At least half of the Paradox Dormir I view at best as rivals, possibly subtle enemies. I don’t know Veril well enough to share these vulnerabilities with him.
Iylynila? No, she’s teased me too, though she doesn’t have me in a psychic bond, so she hadn’t hit me at vulnerable, important times recently. She is about the closest person who might comprehend where I’m coming from and where I need to be though.
I—. There is one other person. She seemed like a good listener, but that could be me projecting onto her because she’s mute. How the hell did I happen upon her, at the moment I was thinking about her? It’s like she always appears then, and disappears the next time I blink. Errissa casually waves my way, mostly shrouded by her stone-colored cloak as she leans casually against a wall. I wave back a bit subdued. I’m not sure if I can handle this right now. If I get a good look at her beneath her cloak, I might go off track, and stew in my negative feelings.