Large Soup Bowl 14 has been added to your party.
Large Soup Bowl 14, level 5, has added you to his list of contacts.
The messages gave Jennifer an idea. She sent a mental command to invite Sarah to her party. She stood up, finished her juice, and gave a thumbs up signal to the innkeeper, making sure it was alright for her to leave. Her meal should be covered in the deal with the mayor for the room, but she wanted to make sure.
“Sarah No Val, the cost of the meal has been added to your room bill.” The innkeeper smiled and waved her hand, signaling the group could depart.
A blue bird landed in front of Jennifer, depositing a note on the table. “Jim: On my way to stables, please meet me there.”
The mayor was going to the stables as Jennifer led the group to the freezing cleaned place. She had decided to leave Woozle behind and let him sleep in their room, and her spider mounted on his preferred shoulder.
It was a short, quiet walk to the building. Jennifer took in the morning air and the peaceful town.
“So, when will you be done cleaning the stables?” the mayor asked.
Jennifer felt the urge to be snarky but resisted the temptation. “If you follow me, Mr. Mayor, you’ll be able to make your own estimate for the time to completion.” Jennifer kept the pleasantness in her voice as the mayor scowled. The mayor was under pressure and had time constraints. He signaled for the trio to continue.
“Hello, Mr Mayor, my name is Sarah No Val. I am with Exports De Universal. I was hoping to speak with you about some trade opportunities.” Sarah’s tone reminded Jennifer of a shark circling its prey on the open ocean.
The mayor stopped, causing the entire group to stop. He stared into Sarah’s eyes for a long moment before doing the same to Large Soup Bowl. Covering his face with his hand, he slowly dragged his hand down. “The exports and ninjas go into retirement, they said. It would be easy, they said. They never mentioned any of this in the orientation.”
The mayor's cheeks flattened, the lines on his face accentuated his age, he raised his thumb and forefinger to rub his temples. He had the appearance of a man that was carrying the whole turtle on his back. Without notice, a smile returned to his face. His back stood straighter as he walked up to Jennifer. He put his arm around her waist, and walked towards the stables.
Jennifer was confused. She did not like the mayor being so touchy and forward with her. She slapped the mayor, maybe a bit too hard.
Jennifer was larger than the mayor. Her hand alone was larger than his face. The left side of his head showed signs of swelling. The two other party members found interest in the fabulous architecture of one of the nearby buildings.
The color moving to the darker range of black and blue, Jennifer handed the mayor a healing potion. A moment later, the mayor handed back the empty vial, the color in his face returning to a refreshed state.
“I’m sorry. That was a bit presumptuous of me.” Both of the mayor‘s cheeks went red and he was unable to meet Jennifer’s eyes before returning to his normal working voice. “However, did you know we’ve nearly tripled the town guard overnight without assistance from the League of the Double Red? They’re the closest freehold city state, and they have promised an extra one thousand guards to protect the city from,” the mayor quickly glanced at both Sarah and Large Soup Bowl “to make sure that the visiting delegation’s visit goes well and no outside parties interfere with the goings on of the town.”
The statement hung in the air. Jennifer was just confused by the sudden change of subject, her cheeks turning red. She was also not willing to let the matter drop. “I only gave you the potion because I hit you harder than I intended to. I’m not sorry for slapping you. I’m sorry for hitting you as hard as I did.” While giving an honest apology to spite her own anger. She wanted to clean the air between the two.
The mayor was visibly taken aback but responded with, “I am sorry. I should not have done that with you or touch you in any way. I was—”
Jennifer cut the mayor off in a voice louder than she intended. “I accept your apology. You acknowledged your error, there is no excuse, but hopefully you will not make the same error again as I will make sure to use the right amount of force next time.” Her voice raised at the second error. If that happened again, she was going to hit harder.
Giant Intimidation has succeeded. The town of Hogback has been temporarily intimidated.
“Damn it. Was I being too loud?” Jennifer asked in a much quieter voice. The mayor held his thumb and forefinger close together, signaling that Jennifer was in fact louder than she thought. “I am sorry for that, too.”
The mayor’s crooked smile and downcast eyes added to the sincerity of the apology. “If we keep apologizing, we’ll be here all day. Let’s move on with the business at hand.”
The group moved towards the stables. Jennifer took a moment to take in her surroundings. She noticed a black and white cow chewing on some grass in the alleyway across the road. The thing that made Jennifer do a double take was the large black aviator sunglasses on the cow’s head. The cow even gave Jennifer a nod, too. Curious about the cow, Jennifer raised her hand to point it out, but before she could say anything, Sarah interrupted.
“I can assure you my company does not want to interfere in any way with the glorious meeting between this town and the local dinosaur warlords. We feel that there is an opportunity to trade goods and services. People in the dinosaur lands use swords and bows, but not the wheel. We may be able to sell them carts, wagons, and maybe even the odd high-end sports car.”
“I don’t even have a car let alone a sports car,” the mayor grumbled.
“I’m here for adventure, glory, and ninja honor,” said Large Soup Bowl.
The mayor's head turned to face the ninja, whose hair changed from neon blue to neon purple for no discernible reason. “Let me guess. New to the game? Don’t have a VR rig yet?”
“Correct.”
“Don’t worry, as a retired person, life is worth spending more time on the outside. No need to get a VR headset. Do try to use punctuation. It helps.”
“Understood.” The ninja made a heart outline with his hands in front of him accompanied with a large red heart appearing above his head.
“Good. I need to check out the stables.” After a brief inspection, it surprised the mayor that the stables were already clean. He seemed like he was looking for a reason to chastise Jennifer by pointing out several very minor things but still gave out an experience bonus to Jennifer.
Taking the stairs and the group up to the roof, Jennifer showed her group members the view over the small town. Looking out from the top of the building, Jennifer saw two black and white cows wandering around town. The first cow was next to one of the larger houses, the second cow was near the museum.
“So, what does the town need?” Jennifer asked the mayor.
The mayor’s Adam’s apple bounced while he gazed down at the question. “While this is a small town, it’s fully self-reliant. Our principle export is specialized nonphysical currency used outside the game, followed by coffee seeds for in-world.” As he spoke his shoulders moved back, wishing his chest puffing out.
“What needs to happen for the town to grow?” finding out what the town needed, she might be able to find something to do in the town. She wanted to help, getting direction from the mayor would help her on her path.
“Getting fragments like you, parallels like Soup bowl, and maybe even more cows.” The mayor added a wink to the word cows.
She was trying to be as covert as possible, but the mayor had spilled the beans. She had no way to get more people to move to town, she could look for farm animals. The town needed more farm animals. Jennifer added Find Farm Animals to her quest menu. She could not add any rewards, so it was more of a note.
“We’ve moved the paper raid to tomorrow. Are you three going to be taking part?” he was facing Sarah and Soup Bowl.
Sarah was the first to respond.“Do you think it’s a good idea to have a raid day when the king and queen are here?” Jennifer recognised the service industry smile that was on Sarah’s face from a genuine one. “A lot could go wrong. Or is this all just a show of force to be used as a deterrent?”
“Yes, a good source for experience. I will join the paper raid,” Soup Bowl said, as robotically as ever.
Jennifer nodded to herself. “I’ll join as well. I’ll be able to heal people and cast my force-field to protect others.”
The mayor nodded at this, while lifting the heels and rising up slightly as a smile crossed his face. “That makes three of you. Normally, a team has four members. Do you have anyone else in mind?”
Jennifer thought this was the mayor trying to be subtle and asking for an invite. She did not hesitate in asking, “Mr. Mayor, would you like to join our team for the paper raid?” The mayor’s smile turned upside down, the inner corners of their eyebrows will be angled up. Jennifer spoke before the mayor could. “You have your own team, don’t you?”
“I have a team with a few of the high-level town guards. It’s better to show a united front in these things.” His apology was unsaid.
Jennifer turned to the other members of the team, with one hand turned upward with an arm out, “Ahh,” seeing if they had any idea.
Sarah shrugged. “I’m more or less a solo out here.”
Soup Bowl stayed in place, but a broken animated heart appeared above his head.
“While we gather moss, we will look for another member,” Jennifer put her hands on her hips, and stood straighter.
The trio left for the museum so Jennifer could return the mostly intact blue ice lobsters.
Her heart started beating faster as she led her team to the museum. She needed to pat down her sweaty hands on her robe as they got closer to the large building.
There was no issue entering the building, again no one was there manning the front desk. Soup Bowl would at times inspect the empty exhibit or empty display case and then share a quest Catch Poison-Breathing Parrot or Find Yellow Lady’s Slippers. Jennifer could not see the available quests that the ninja was seeing. She huffed at this. Again, she was being denied access to part of the world because of who she was. She did not mind that the ninja boy was able to see and choose the quests, but it irked her that she could not. She tried not to be jealous of the ninja but if asked, would admit to some envy over the fact the ninja’s neon hair kept changing. That just seemed fun.
When the trio finally got to the sea exhibit, an audible gasp from Sarah as they entered the space. A pair of wide, cartoonish eyes appeared above Large Soup Bowl’s head. Jennifer kept walking around, trying to appear unfazed at the amazing exhibits around her. When the group arrived in front of the blue ice lobster [AP1] tank. Her heart raced as she focused on her breathing and counted to three. She had just borrowed the lobsters. What was she afraid of? Nothing was wrong. She was going to have to wait until a distraction presented itself.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
The group watched in awe as the living lobsters continued on errands and quests only, they knew. One stood on top of the highest hill in the aquarium with a crown and cape. The king lobster was at least as long as Soup Bowl was tall. The lobsters moved with grace any ballerina would be envious of. The carapaces of all the lobsters [RM2] shone like ice melting in the spring sun.
Jennifer really needed a distraction.
“Hey, look, a distraction,” Jennifer yelled, pointing in a random direction. With her companion’s attention pulled, she put the two lobsters back where she found them. They were almost as good as new because she had repaired them herself.
“Sorry, what was the distraction again?” Sarah asked.
Jennifer was smiling, blinking rapidly, and looking away, trying to appear innocent as possible with her hands behind her back, but she could tell her face was getting warm.
“Oh, it’s gone now. But hey those lobsters sure are pretty. Look at these two on display here.” Jennifer spoke quickly and without making eye contact.
A large question mark appeared above Soup Bowl’s now neon-green hair. “Were those there before?” No inflection in the ninja’s voice, but it was clearly a question.
“Well, of course they were here before, and they’re here now. I think. Yes, time to go to the next exhibit.” Her words ran into each other as she hurried toward the next exhibit. But the entranceway had an Exhibit Closed for Cultural Reasons sign barring her way. She hung her head knowing this was the end, case open and shut. Someone would find out what she did and throw her in jail. She had only been borrowing the lobsters. Plus, they helped the town.
“Sure, why not, time for gathering moss, maybe fighting some forest monsters.”
Soup Bowl’s words gave Jennifer hope of being able to get out of the situation she had put herself in. She lifted her head and saw the ninja walking to the exit. She followed without making eye contact with Sarah. Jennifer felt as if the whole museum was now watching her.
Chapter: A Wolf in Wolf’s Skin
The trio was happily walking in the woods picking flowers. Or rather, Jennifer was happily gathering flowers, moss, roots, and greens while Sarah held a handgun at the ready and the Large Soup Bowl was nowhere in sight. Jennifer was still getting used to the team interface. She could feel he was around and could also see him on the mini map.
“How can someone with glowing neon hair and glowing neon hair be so stealthy?” Jennifer asked, monitoring in the direction shown on the map.
“Ninja skills,” the tree replied, sounding a lot like Soup Bowl. Jennifer shrugged at this and went back to picking some nice yellow flowers that seemed to grow like weeds in this part of the forest.
“Incoming,” Sarah yelled and pointed her gun to the sky.
A very loud and drawn out “Kid,” was heard yelling back over the sound of rockets.
Jennifer put her hand to her eyes and face. She heard a few loud pops from Sarah’s gun, followed by a laser beam coming out of her watch before Jennifer had a chance to stop her friend.
An impact that caused a wall of dust and a shockwave made the trio stumble. Woozle came out of the dust cloud, fangs bared, jets glowing, and dodging the bullets as if they were nothing but falling leaves. There was ringing in Jennifer’s ear as the ninja popped out of nowhere to deliver a strike with a glowing knife. Woozle dodged the attack, redirecting his mass with his rockets to deliver a powerful kick followed by a blast of hot exhaust that sent the ninja flying back.
“We’re under attack. Get behind me. I’ll protect you.” Woozle sounded like a grizzled veteran of combat as he circled Jennifer forming a line in the ground around her.
Holding her hand out in front of her, “Sarah, you remember Woozle from the hot tub, don’t you? Large Soup bowl 14, this is Woozle. He’s my familiar, so none of you should be fighting.” Her words came slowly, showing the others she was calm as the ringing in her ears stopped. She wanted to pick up her little protector and give him cuddles, but it did not seem like a good time to give him attention. She did not want to embarrass him in front of the team.
Woozle turned around to face Jennifer and sat on his hind legs with head tilted. “What about the wolf?”
“Wha—” Her words were cut off as a large, powerful force came at her from behind, knocking her to the ground face first. She flailed around unable to get up with such a heavy weight on her back.
Unable to lift herself up with the weight on her back, she shifted her weight to the right. Even before she finished raising, on a near instinct level, Jennifer started casting. The speed around her slowed as she took in the situation. It was indeed a wolf. The beast was attacking the ninja with its powerful jaws. Before the creature could chomp down on Soup Bowl’s arm, she encased him in a force field bubble. Its fangs ground against the protective field.
Shots from Sarah’s gun rang out, hitting the lupin but doing little to no damage. Switching tactics, she used the laser beam from her watch, leaving a black line across the wolf’s fur. The animal turned to face Sarah, lowering his massive head and growling with such intensity and power, Jennifer’s bones vibrated paces away. An alert came up in her menus.
Growl Debuff: Resistance Reduced
A click in her mind told her that her force field was ready to be used again. She cast the protective bubble on Sarah. The wolf dodged Sarah’s ranged attacks while charging her. It’s bestial fangs ripped into the force field. The animal was strong and fast. Sarah was the only one causing damage to the attacking beast. The force fields would not last long.
Large Soup Bowl charged in yelling, “Ninja Sneak Attack.”
The ninja buried his blade deep into the fur covered side. This was the first time the wolf reacted to any damage, the beast’s head turned to the knife in its side. Jennifer renewed her shield on Sarah as the attacker’s head swiveled back[AP3] to face the ninja. With a growl deeper than before, the animal faced off with the ninja.
The Growl Debuff stacking on the group lowered everyone’s damage resistance.
The creature and ninja circled one another as the growl grew louder. Sarah reloaded her gun. Jennifer prepared her Dark Pulse attack. Ninja took the initiative, by throwing something on the ground. In a plume of smoke the ninja’s outer lines faded into stealth. The tearing teeth met Large Soup Bowl before he was completely invisible. Thanks to the forcefield the ninja was knocked back, the protective field popping out of existence. Woozle landed on the wolf’s back, biting down hard with his rows of shark teeth.
Rather than using her attack power, Jennifer used force field on Woozle.
The beast spit out a gob of blood onto the ground and. The beast shook off her familiar. The lynx-shark landed in front of Jennifer on all four legs and squared off with the threat, a protector between the beast many times his size and his person. As the hound moved the lynx-shark mirrored the other’s movement while keeping himself between Jennifer and the beast.
With the force field cost on Woozle, Jennifer saw her mana bar was just over the halfway mark. She needed a plan. The wolf made a move to charge the much smaller familiar, as time slowed as Jennifer cast force field on herself. Sarah fired her gun, followed by a ninja's sneak attack.
A plan, she needed a plan. Just attacking wildly was not going to work.
Suddenly, she had a plan. Jennifer, mop in hand, charged in a rage at the creature . The animal charged at Jennifer in kind. She twisted her whole body, screaming incoherently as she swung her mop as hard as she could, and hit the beast’s face.
An alert popped up. Giant Intimidation successful
Jennifer did not have time to read the message, but she knew what it meant.
The animal was knocked to the ground on its side. Time returned to normal speed. She had a plan, and the one thing she was missing appeared from a trapdoor on her shoulder.
The attacker stood up and took a half step back with a deep growl.
Jennifer hoped the spider would live up to one of his traits. “Rover, make a trapdoor in front of me big enough for that wolf.” The spider vanished from her shoulder. “Soup, strike the line of shark bites. Sarah, aim for the head.” Jennifer’s words were emotionless.
The lupin let out a howl and charged at Jennifer. She glared, unflinching and unmoving. Her heart beat too fast to count. The beast charged her at a fantastic speed. Each step the beast took added speed. Jennifer did not raise her mop to defend herself or queue up her force field bubble. The beast was too close now. With each moment, the beast closed the distance.
Jennifer closed her eyes.
A smile crossed her face as she heard the crash. Opening her eyes, the wolf was stuck wrapped in a white net made of spider webbing in front of her. Jennifer raised her mop above her head. “Now.” She did not know whose attack landed first, or last, but After many attacks from the team, Jennifer whispered to the animal, “I’m sorry.”
A laser shot from Sarah’s watch finished off the beast.
Jennifer’s mop had cracks running up and down the shaft. She inspected her teammates. In her team window she saw the others status bars. Sarah was uninjured, but ninja had taken some damage. He was still well above half health. One healing potion was left in her inventory. She also had not recast her healing potions, and this was the last healing potion on her.
The group stood over the downed animal, as the creature changed from a terrifying beast into four large cut steaks, two wolf hides, two wolf hearts, and a wolf skeleton.
Soup Bowl was the first to move towards the dropped loot.
Jennifer’s mind and body both moved at a much slower speed than before the fight but she was still fast enough to let out a “Wait.” She breathed deeply and counted to ten. Her eyes combed the area. She easily found what she was looking for, took a few colorful flowers out of the ground, creating an improvised bouquet, which she laid out before the beast’s parts lay.
Jennifer knew she should say something but was unable to find the words. She opened and closed her mouth, searching for something appropriate to say. To her surprise, the ninja spoke. “We thank you for the offerings of your body, and we apologize for the way your body must be taken.” The words did not feel correct, but the intention was there.
No one objected when Jennifer took the skeleton along with the fur. The other two members of the team took the rest of the loot. Woozle was limping, so Jennifer recast her three craft healing potions. Checking in her team’s menu, Woozle had taken the most damage, so he received the first healing potion. Soup Bowl received the second.
Bringing out the healing potions resulted in more black and gray on Jennifer’s stamina bar than she would have liked. She had not been expecting a fight and decided she did not enjoy it.
“I can hear a stream nearby. How about we go over there for the healing moss?” Sarah’s voice distracted Jennifer from her thoughts, but she could still hear her blood rushing through her body and her heart pumped far too loud and fast for her to form a response. She nodded to her friend. Sarah took the lead with Jennifer and Soup Bowl following, and the group silently moved to the stream. Woozle returned to Jennifer’s hood to take a rest.
No one spoke as they arrived at the flowing water, Jennifer entered the stream in her clothes, still feeling hot from the fight. The stream added green to her stamina bar, but there was still more gray than green. While in the water, Jennifer cast mend on her broken mop. She did not want to watch the wires do their repair dance, so she kept the mop under the water and her head above.
“Healing moss, twenty pieces,” Large Soup Bowl said as he moved to gather the moss. Out of the group, the only one that did not show signs of distress was the ninja.
Her eyes passed to Sarah, her friend’s hands were still shaking from the fight. Woozle swam in the water, catching fish. It was not until Sarah started to clean the fishes that.
In a low voice from her right side, “Do you want me to catch more?”
Jennifer shook her head. Her familiar returned to her hoody and purred. The noise and vibration did settle her heart. “Thank you, Woozle.” Her campaign purred louder.
Small pops, crackling followed by the welcoming woody aroma. Sarah started a fire in a circle of stone. The wood was arranged in a near up turned angle, Jennifer's memoirs sparked telling her this was a teepee fire. Sarah was adding a handful of pine needles into the orange licks of fire. The smoke from burning pine needles added a distinct and pleasant aroma to the source of heat. Ninja forced pieces of wood that were pointed on both ends into the ground, one point in the ground the other in the air near the heat source. He then speared the fish on the free end of the pole. The smell of the natural burning wood, pine needles and cooking fish created an aroma that created a spice in the air.
Jennifer lost track of time as she focused on her breathing to calm down after the fight as the fish cooked. Closing her eyes, wishing to focus on what could still see her menus. The display of Icons indicated the various conditions on herself and her teammates.
The conditions on Soup were rest, stealth, ninja reflexes, and ninja danger sense. Focusing her mind on the rest icon, the effect description stated that it added buffs to healing, mana recovery, and stamina recovery, but he was unable to move while under the trait’s influence.
Jennifer opened her eyes. According to her menus, Soup bowl was fully recovered. She watched his icon on her mini map, moving along the side of the river. Jennifer guessed He was probably searching for more healing moss or fish.
Her stamina was still low, and the smell of the cooking was the motivation she needed to leave the water. The fish she ate recovered most of her stamina.
Returning to her inventory, she had a way to go on the healing-moss. Her eyes were drawn to her new wolf skeleton. Not knowing what to expect, she cast mend on the skeleton while keeping it in her inventory and saw the skeleton’s integrity go from sixty-five up to eighty percent.
Jennifer found her mind wondering. Her curiosity was piqued, and she did not want to hold back her question. “So, a golden gun and a laser watch are powers you get from being a hunter/gatherer?”
Sarah’s hand went up to cover a laugh. “No, I get those from work—”
A howl rang out over the forest.
Jennifer’s body went cold, a shiver went down her spine and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Rover, can you do that trap thing again?”
The spider shook its body, indicating a no.