[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]

[Level: 2]

Days passed before Verity woke up. She stabilized over that time period, but actual consciousness was too much to ask for.

They didn’t pitch Feathertooth into the deeper parts of the ocean, and the raven was endlessly thankful to them for it. Ben had not one cent to care about how grateful it was or wasn’t for its prolonged survival. The fact of the matter was that the other corvids might want Feathertooth back in exchange for a ransom. The arrogant bird had hinted at the high status ravens held many times during the time they had spent together, and if he was telling the truth, there might be something to it.

Still, this was all speculation. Right now they were resting and recovering, plotting their next move, but not settling on anything concrete. Lucky had finished the ventilation shafts, which had been arduous with Verity’s prone form lying underfoot, constantly in danger of being hit by the debris.

Now, the woman had retreated into a corner they had begun calling her workshop. It was already stained with grease and littered with pulled apart trinkets, so the nickname was well earned, it felt like. If there had been a fire, it would have been a proper forge. But even without that, Lucky made do and had begun working on her new wheelchair.

“Rubber tracks would have been preferable.” She explained to Ben, who had taken to assisting her and grabbing anything nearby that seemed like it could be useful, “But I don’t have any rubber on me. Didn’t think to pack any. And the flora here doesn’t exactly look… rubber-filled.”

“Would these palm leaves help any?” Ben asked, whacking one that she had found fallen on the islet above. It was very bendy, so maybe it would fulfill the purpose Lucky needed the rubber for?

Lucky shook her head, though she looked regretful, “The tracks are to give the wheels something to grab onto, even in the sand. These just… would not be acceptable. Though I am grateful for your assistance!” She tacked on, as if alarmed that Ben would take offense.

“Don’t worry about it!” Ben laughed, “We’ll figure something else out.”

Lucky nodded resolutely, “Like maybe digging grooves into wooden tree trunks. That might provide enough traction for me…” She pulled out a sketchbook and began sketching a design. Ben laughed slightly, bringing her hand up to make Lucky stop.

“I meant… we can go searching for rubber. In the deeper ocean.” She explained, “Humans have been dead for what? A hundred or so years? If there are huts still standing, they must have left behind rubber in their oceans somewhere. A lot of stuff ends up dumped into the oceans, you know?”

“Really?” Lucky frowned uncertainly, “I have never heard of such a phenomenon. Rubber has always been a resource one is lucky to come across. We would never simply toss it aside.”

“Back in my time, there was way too much of it, and it wasn’t getting processed right after being thrown into the trash.” Ben explained, “Way too many animals choke on the stuff. If there were any people here even half as advanced as they were in my dimension, there’s rubber in the oceans.”

Lucky blinked, taken by surprise, “You seem to know an awful lot about the subject.” She murmured.

“Oh, I used to work with humanitarian groups to organize beach and ocean bed cleanups.” Ben explained excitedly, for a moment transported into a different world, “I was a veterinarian, you see, and they liked to have me onsite to help with any animal that had gotten stuck in waste of some kind.”

“That sounds… thrilling.” Lucky whispered, a red flush glancing across her cheeks.

“It was!” Ben agreed, “I even went scuba diving multiple times. To pick up trash and stuff, but hey, it was free scuba, who am I to complain?”

“You have experience, then?” She asked, her entire body straightening back up as she took the last bit on information excitedly, “In collecting trash off the sea floor?”

“I… uh… I guess?” Ben blinked, thrown off-kilter by the woman’s sudden change in mannerism. Lucky didn’t pay attention, already scuttling her legged chair to where they put Verity’s metal bowl of a helmet, with the hose attached to it.

“Do you think this will be enough for you to do scuba?” She asked, brandishing the equipment towards Ben with a look that seared straight through her skin. It was a risky thing to try. The pressure was too intense to be going in without a full suit, but she had to at least give it a shot. If pressure sickness got to her, then she could always tap out.

“You know that hose is made of rubber, right?” She asked, tapping the long synthetic noodle that stretched up to the roof of the cave.

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“I am aware, yes.” Lucky agreed, “But we would need this hose more. Such as for situations like this. Other rubber items in the Inventory have been considered, but they are not as bountiful as the hose. Not enough to make even one tire, let alone the multitude of things we will no doubt need as our journey progresses.”

We? Our? The words swam in her head. Trying to keep a giddy smile off her face, Ben nodded towards her, “So you’re planning to see this through to the end?” She asked.

“Might as well.” Lucky shrugged, “Becoming a Player is… strange. I find myself filled with compulsions I had never felt before. The urge to progress and move on and continue rising and rising. I have always been a competitive spirit, but this is… an intimidating sensation. If there is a goal I have to dedicate myself to, however, the one you and your party ascribes themselves to is the more honorable one.”

Of course. Because Lucky didn’t actually want to be here and do these things. She was filled with an unknown compulsion. The same way none of them were anything other than a fragile party held together by virtue of being reliant on the same Console.

It was a jolt of reality that stung but was very much needed.

“Right.” She agreed and was mortified at how close to tears she sounded, “Thanks for… putting so much faith in us. I guess.”

“You guess?” Lucky parroted, a small smile on her face as she tilted her head to the side, “You should know that, Benedict.”

And then she was shuffling away, her fingers playing a symphony across the controls of her chair. Ben remained rooted to the spot, the sound of Lucky saying her name replaying in her head over and over again. This was… a new feeling.

“Here, you ready to go?” Lucky asked, popping back up, the other end of the hose in her right hand, allowing the helmet to have a better reach.

“Yeah, just give me a moment.” Ben promised, her knees shaky. Lucky didn’t seem bothered, even with her short patience and demand for immediate action. She just watched, as if dissecting every move Ben made. Ben turned around resolutely to avoid her gaze, but she could still feel her gaze burning into her shoulder. She stomped over to where Tench was reading a book, one of the ones he had stashed in the Inventory before they left Hygeia.

Ben hoisted him up, “Come on, I’m going to yell at you some.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.” He agreed, following along with the manhandling up into the ladder they had built into the side of the wall, which was disguised above ground as a bush. No more underwater adventures for them, anymore.

“Alright, we’re out of earshot of your soon-to-be girlfriend.” He announced once they had covered the exit again, “Have you realized it yet?”

“I think I’ve had my third ever crush-” Ben’s budding spiel came to a halt as she stared at Tench, “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.” He said, “Saw it coming a mile away. She’s exactly your type, too.”

“I’m demiromantic. I don’t have a type.” Ben insisted, crossing her arms as she began thinking through any similarities the only three people she’d developed crushes on. Surely if there had been any chair-bound engineers from a Victorian time period in her dating history, she would’ve noticed.

“Smart, determined, could step on you, and has a pretentious need to never use contractions.” Tench listed out on his fingers, looking almost bored with this charade.

Ben cringed. Tench really needed to let her fling with that church basement actor go. There were more pressing issues for him to focus on. Like the very scary woman waiting downstairs for her to get a move on.

“Why did you drag me here?” He asked, plopping himself down on the ground, “You’re too in touch with your feelings to be actually freaking about someone filtering through your super selective system.”

Ben wrung her hands, “You think she’s going to be upset at me?” She asked, all in a big rush, just as she had intended to do at the beginning of this conversation.

For once, it seemed that she had actually taken Tench by surprise, as he reared his head back to stare at her, “I’m sorry, what?” He asked, looking at her as if she had said something unreasonable.

“You know…” She replied, less certain that before, “Will she be mad at me if I tell her how I feel? She kinda sorta seems like the type.”

“In what universe?” Tench blurted out, before raising his hands, “Yeah, alright. You’re being anxious over nothing. That’s… understandable. I’m going to say that instead of something really insensitive.”

“Oh, fuck off.” She shoved him in a fit of childishness, but Tench dodged with years of practice.

“And to answer your question, no, I don’t think the woman who identified another woman in the camper as ‘quite the looker’ and giving her bedroom eyes is homophobic.”

“So, you mean that she’s got someone at home?” If anything, that only made her feel worse.

Tench growled under his breath, “You’re missing the point. Did you see her hanging around any Cynthia’s while you were at the Cathedral?”

“…No?” Ben replied, trying to wrack her brain for any memory of such a person.

“Then she doesn’t give a shit about her. Besides, Lucky’s not exactly going back there anytime soon, so just take the easy win, swoop in, and grab yourself a girl!” He said, throwing in a poke into her ribs for good measure.

Ben was going to turn the topic around to pickup lines she could hypothetically use, but that train of thought was cut off by the bush disguise over the entrance being indiscreetly shoved to the side as Asadullah poked his head out, looking delighted, “Lucky says that if you don’t get into the helmet soon, I can do the rubber collecting thing instead of you!”

No wonder there had been so little pushback because of Ben’s spontaneous delay. She almost admired the other woman’s audacity, if that audacity didn’t lead to her goading a young boy who had never seen the ocean before into its depths to collect rubber while essentially blinded and clinging onto a singular thread of life. While being hunted by squid. Oh, and he was also half cat, which wasn’t… compatible with water, last she checked.

“No need for drastic measures, Asad, I’m coming down.” She told him, perhaps a little snappy as she rushed by, but that was more of a nervous outburst than anything else.

Still, she heard him whisper to Tench behind her back, “What’s her deal?” in infuriating green text.

“Just having a gay old time, buddy.” Tench responded to her, so he was dead to her now.

Ben marched up to Lucky and shoved the helmet over her head, “Okay, let’s make this quick.” She announced, trying to insert an ounce of enthusiasm into her voice. She just sounded pissed off.

[Player Log End!]