BONUS-SCENE: EDDIE'S REAR END SKILL

Shiny Frenemy to Flowing Flowers: "Mind if I lean my back against yours?"

Flowing Flowers to Shiny Frenemy: "Good idea! Maybe I can even take a nap with my back supported. Albeit, I'm currently working on my Magical Perception, so I don't know whether I can control my snooping range to exclude you."

At the same time, Flora received Eddie's "I don't mind, love." she felt his back on hers.

Then she sensed a huge amount of energy leaving Eddie's buttocks… and it didn't stop.

First, Flora wanted to ask her friend what he was doing, but she didn't want to disturb his channeling.

"Aidan, do you know which skill Eddie is using? Don't tell me; I want to guess."

"Yes, Milady. The combat log lists all spells of the party."

"Great, let's play Hot or Cold. I'll make a conjecture, and you'll say how close to the truth it is via the temperature." Flora wanted to clear her mind of any ridiculous thoughts, so she said: "Eddie is channeling Mega Fart!"

"Hot, Milady."

"Really?" Flora laughed. "Ha, on the right track with the first try! I hope it doesn't stink." At the moment, Flora only smelt burned hair and fabric.

"You have guessed wrong, Milady. You are sitting in the fire, so my answer would always be 'Hot'. Maybe I have misunderstood the game?"

"Oh, dear." Flora laughed harder but tried not to shake too much. "Hot is pretty close to the truth. Warm means that the direction of the guess is right, while cold means it's off. You may use cool for in between. The game uses temperature as an indicator of how close my call is."

"That makes more sense, Milady. Cold."

Flora nodded and concentrated on the energy below Eddie's butt. The magic jittered between Eddie and the hotplate. "So it's nothing that purely affects the floor. It interacts with Eddie."

"Hot, Milady."

"Maybe he gets something from the flame rune-scheme?" Flora analyzed the energy, but it didn't seem to be elemental. She wouldn't even say that it was a spell.

"Cold, Milady."

Concentrating on the nature of the magic, Flora eliminated prayers and charms, as well.

"Is it a technique, an art, or a trick?" She listed the most likely candidates and narrowed it down with Aidan's feedback to a skill of the Trick branch. However, the knowledge didn't get her closer to the function of the skill. "I'd always knew he was a tricky bum, no wonder he has one!" Flora mumbled. "Maybe I should determine the area of expertise. That would narrow down the applications. Has it something to do with acting or the entertainment industry?"

"Cold, Milady."

"Sailing or pirates?"

"Hot, Milady."

"Swashbuckling tricky butt skills … hmm. Okay, let's forget about the butt part. I can channel through multiple body parts, no matter the effect. Am I right in the assumption that the skill isn't usually channeled through the bottom?"

"Coolish, maybe luke-warm."

"Oh, I didn't expect that. Do people mainly channel it through their butt or feet?"

"Warm, Milady."

"So what use could a skill interacting between user and surface bring to a sailor or pirate?" Flora mused. "Water walking?"

"Cold."

Flora returned to analyzing the energy. It was exceptionally stable for a channeled skill. For comparison, Flora directed a Kinetic Beam to the nearest dummy. The dummy vibrated under the force of the spell, and some of the Frogs fell off. Flora raised her eyebrows.

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The test gave her several new avenues of inquiry. Her primary reason for channeling was to compare the stability of the channeled energies, and while Flora judged her beam as very stable, Eddie's skill was even more so. The second revelation was that Eddie's power was psychokinetic. She should have noticed it sooner, but she had assumed it was a byproduct because of the energies' movement.

The falling frogs gave her another clue− or more an inspiration. When she saw them tumbling down, her first thought had been: 'Wouldn't it be nifty to have sticky feet?'

"Sticky Butt! It's a skill to stick to a surface, right? Sailors could use it to resist stumbling when the ship swerves in high waves!"

"You guessed right, Milady. The name is Sea Legs. Sailors use it as you have deducted but mainly for sleeping through storms."

"That also explains the immense stability of the channeling. If the skill has to be active while sleeping, it has to be very easy to uphold. Eddie lucked out for this challenge."

"Yes, Milady. He morphed the skill to be several multitudes more costly, but it is one of the most suited skills for the challenge that I have come across."

BONUS-SCENE: AITO WANTS ROMANCE

Aito's human was a hard case regarding romance. Of course, Aito wouldn't give up, but what she learned so far discouraged her from trying the obvious romance tactics. It was more of a long term project.

Now that she had two prime subjects in the most suitable age-range to experiment with, Flora's romance could wait.

In the Cetvivos Forum, Little Immortal had started a betting pool how long it would take for Mia and Frogger to hook up. It was a poorly executed plan for revenge because his own betting pool had the highest odds of never getting together with Kitty. Nonetheless, the gambling addicts still gave the two introverts a higher probability of finding love than the Mini-Master Star.

Aito hadn't set a wager yet, but she was rooting for as soon and as romantic as possible. With both of them here, she had the chance to influence the situation. What would be the most fitting way to fall in love? She couldn't lock Mia and Frogger in an elevator. What a pity.

The stupid humans abolished the custom that when a man and a woman are alone in a room, they had to marry. So getting rid of the other participants wouldn't be necessary. What a stupid thing to patch! The romance was so much easier accomplished when forced marriages were a thing. They should reinstall that custom!

Fortunately, her more recent literature showed that now people of the same sex could romance each other. That increased the chance for love manifold! And it returned a bit of trust into humanity's intellect to Aito. Albeit she wasn't sure of the rules involved, she only knew, a female and male hooking up was called heterosexuality. Against all reason, that was a popular sexuality.

When a person chose to date males and females, they were called bisexual, but Aito just called them sensible. Some pan-sexual people dated everybody, probably only humans, vampires, demons, and demi-humans, but she wasn't sure. Somehow something named "gender" played a role, but she hadn't figured the concept out. She categorized them as "very sensible but confusing".

Last and definitely least, the most irrational category, homosexuals. They would only date people of the same sex, so not only they neglected half of the population, but also the sensible portion of the population was as tiny as you expected from humans. Hence, their dating pool was even smaller than 50%. Who would want that?

Aito wouldn't even dare to think about the one book that mentioned someone asexual. Surely, that was an invention of the author; nobody would be that obstinate, right?

Because Mia was very sensible, she had to be at least bisexual if not pan. Frogger seemed to be a human with potential, so he had to be at least bisexual as well. Therefore they had to be compatible. Although she knew that age played a role in partnerships, the rules were even more confusing. At the moment, she was going with the hypothesis that the couple had to be at least 18 years old, and the age difference had to be smaller than 15 years or more than 100 years. So, she hoped that the age fit as well.

What exactly could she do… Locking them up, forcing them into marriage, or a fake relationship were out. Maybe a prophecy? No, she would have to contact one of her old colleagues for that. Getting one of them abducted? She could log into an Octopussy and steal a body out of the box and stash it somewhere. However, she couldn't leave the premises without her human, so finding a good hiding place was impossible. The search wouldn't be a proper quest, and Haidan would probably snitch. Nonetheless, she saved the idea as Plan B.

Aito had to go with the simplest of plans: Tripping them to "fall" in love.

After logging into the Octopussy in the bedroom, she crouched behind the healing turret. At the moment, both of her targets were sitting, but she was ready!

Finally, Mia stood up. Aito dashed out of her cover, gripped her ankle, and pulled. The surprised girl lost her balance and crashed into Frogger. Wonderful! The druid toppled over and landed on the napping Cherrya! Even more splendid! Love-Triangle alert!

Aito set all her sensors to the maximum. Would they blush?

"What are you doing, little robot? Is Auntie Flora all right?" Mia asked, without any discoloration. Frogger never stopped casting. Cherrya even slept throughout the entire incident, just mumbling, "Flee, when the janitor auntie comes."

Aito deflated and displayed teardrops on the Octopussy's skin.

*farting beep*

No, she shouldn't be too greedy. Hoping for success or even a love-triangle on her first try was probably too much. On the other hand, one should aim high! Her next plan would succeed, but she should wait a while before implementing it. The humans wouldn't know what was going to hit them! Romance had to be happening!

RESULTS OF THE ACHIEVEMENT HUNT AFTER 9 HOURS:

Flora: 14 achievements.

Mia: 13 achievements.

Frogger and Dice: 12 achievements.

Eddie: 11 achievements.

Shari and Gram: 8 achievements.

Cherrya: 6 achievements.

Achievement Summery [https://joanninjahen.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/2052b_achiev_summery2.png]