Chapter 14: Back to Town

Jennifer ran full speed towards the town hall. The mayor had said if Woozle was anywhere, that is where he would be. Her eyes watered, her heart pounded, and her lungs burned. The paper raid field was within the city border of Hogbacks. Her emotions drove her on, it was not a skill, power or ability that added to her speed.

A crowd of people stood in front of the city hall. Jennifer did not look at any of the people as she ran. They could have been waiting for other survivors, or just spectators. As soon as she entered the building, she veered toward the receptionist. The dark-skinned woman with dragonfly-like wings was speaking to another winged person. In her distress, Jennifer rushed over and blurted out, "Woozle, a miniature giant flying lynx-shark, where is he?"

Jennifer knew she was interrupting whoever the receptionist was talking to and that she would have been yelling if not for the need to catch her breath, but her worry over Woozle made her forget her manners.

The receptionist, to her credit, looked at Jennifer calmly. "Down the stairs to the left, second meeting room."

Jennifer rushed down the stairs and found the room she wanted. Someone had laid single person beds out in orderly rows. People in gray robes with red crosses on write robes moved from patient to patient. She froze, her eyes taking in the room. Everyone in this room was also on the battlefield earlier. Dozens of teams began the battle, but only around twenty people survived. All of the defeated were in this room rather than lying where they had fallen in battle. The system must have moved them.

A loud bark tore her mind away from her taking in the scene before her, and she immediately turned to see Kevin sitting next to Woozle’s cot. Her feet automatically propelled her toward Kevin before she could process what she was seeing. When understanding hit, she had already wrapped her arms around the greenish gray wolf and let her tears flow freely.

"Where is Woozle?”

Kevin raised one of his front legs and returned the hug, resting his large head on her shoulder as she cried.

"Kid?"

Woozle's voice was normally gruff, deep, and always reminded Jennifer of a grumpy old man. Now his voice was weaker and did not have its normal lust for life, which made her pause her crying to look down at the prone body on the cot.

Woozle lay in his monorail position, belly flat against the cot with paws spread out. The shark fin on his back that normally stood straight up dropped to the side as his unfocused eyes glazed over. Woozle opened his mouth in an attempt to yawn and started to stretch out but stopped suddenly, wincing.

She desperately wanted to pick him up, pain etched his movements. She needed to hold something, and Kevin was real, and alive. “I am so sorry. The battle -" she trailed off as the tears came back. "Kevin was killed, I couldn’t find you, and-and -" She let the tears pour out onto the wolf's fur.

Eventually, she steadied herself, wiping away her tears and getting her water works under control. Edging away from Kevin enough to look the wolf in the eyes, she almost lost it again. She saw him get killed. But for some reason, she had forgotten he would be coming back. At the moment, she did not care what the rules of this world were. She was happy Kevin was back.

Woozle was another story. She had the option to dismiss her familiar, but what about losing him in battle? She had no idea.

Composed, she gazed around the room. "If I’d died, I would have just been transported here?"

She did not direct the question at anyone, but a young boy answered. "The only ones that wouldn’t have been transported here would be functionaries. They would have fled before fighting though." He wore gray robes but spoke with more experience than his age should have allowed. "Was this your first raid, miss?"

"Am I that obvious?" She focused on the floor and kept her voice low.

Kevin moved his head and snout to nudge Woozle gently as the young boy in the healer uniform talked. "This goblin was quite insistent that I come and check here. Hmm, I don’t recognize this patient's species."

Jennifer turned to look at Woozle. He had remained unmoved in a monorail pose, but his eyes were closed. Something was missing, something about her familiar that was normally there but was now absent.

She whispered, "His tail. His tail is missing." His beautiful snow white and light gray patched fur-covered shark's tail was now only a small nib of a tail. The tail of a lynx.

Looking around the room, she did not see anyone else missing arms or legs. She did not understand why only her friend, her familiar, had lost a part of himself.

"Miss, can you check if you have a new quest?" the robed boy asked.

Her head tilted to one side before she opened her menus. There was a new quest marked with a red exclamation mark.

Why is the lynx-shark's tail missing? Your familiar had its tail stolen. Find out who stole it and get it back! Personal story line, multi-tiered rewards based on tier progression.

One of Unknown. Find your familiar’s tail or dismiss your familiar.

At first, she did not understand the message. When comprehension hit, her eyes narrowed, she felt her anger rise. There was no keeping that emotion out of her voice. "Someone stole his tail." It was not a question. It was confirmation of what fueled her anger.

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"Kid, I don’t need a tail. I’m still a good familiar. I won’t give up. Please." His voice remained weak, laced with more than a hint of fear infused in his voice.

Jennifer looked down in confusion. There was nothing to be fearful of. The room was filled with warriors. Anything that could cause fear would be stopped before it reached the door.

The kid in the gray robes said, "It would be best to dismiss him. Starting familiars are never useful in the end." He shook his head and left.

Jennifer glared at the back of the boy’s head as he walked away to check on others recovering from battle. How could he even suggest that? They were not strangers passing each other in the night. They were not weak-willed simpletons willing to give up when things got hard. Woozle was the first person she met in the new world and was ready to defend her at any moment. He may be hurt now, but he will get better, won't he? Letting her anger pour into her words, she said, "As long as you want to stay, I’m never going to dismiss you. I’m never going to run around and leave you. I’m never going to say goodbye."

Woozle groaned. "Yeah, I can’t remember that song either. But for now, put me in the hood, and let's go see the scoreboard."

Jennifer picked Woozle up in her arms. She checked on Rover, who was sitting on her shoulder. She nodded at Kevin, and made her way out of the emergency infirmary. After five steps, she put Woozle back down.

The problem was he was too big to travel that way. As she leveled up, he had gone from the size of a field mouse to a normal sized lynx or large dog, both of which were too large to fit in her hood. She looked around for an alternative, but nothing was built for carrying a creature like him. She turned the blanket under Woozle into a sling to carry her friend.

Leaving the room, Jennifer walked past a large board listing the names of the top teams along with their rewards. The top team and top three individuals had their names blacked out.

Her team was fourth, just behind the mayor's team. While her team was low on damage, they had received high points for organizing, healing, and buffing. Each member had won half a green, and as team leader, Jennifer controlled the division of winnings. Without a second thought, she decided to split the money evenly. Looking through her menu, she found where and how to split the reward. Remembering how the mayor explained this world’s money, she recalled that half of a green was five hundred yellows, so each party member would receive one hundred twenty-five yellows.

She was still somewhat confused about money in this world, but if reds were pocket change and oranges were dollars, then yellows were thousands. However, that conversion was not perfect because inns for a night cost less than a meal, and that did not seem right. Either way, it felt like she was carrying more money than she ever had before.

The scoreboard also displayed a loot selection area. Again, Jennifer scored high. She assumed that was because she had not been transported back to the hospital, so she had automatically received the options of a generic drop that she would be able to use or sell, or receive a drop that would be tied to one of her power sets.

Jennifer was already feeling rich with the cash prize, so she chose to go with the random drop that would be tied to one of her classes.

Congratulations: You have received the item - brewing station - . This station will allow you to craft potions far better and use ten percent less ingredients with a thirty percent chance of critical success or failure.

The word brewing station was in purple lettering, but Jennifer had no idea what this meant. Would she be able to craft more potions, better potions, or both?

The scoreboard’s total loot inventory had a list of items that players could bid on. The bidding process was relatively easy. She could tag any items she wanted, and if no one else bid on them she would receive them. If multiple people tagged a specific item, they would have to roll to see who received that particular item. The person higher up on the scoreboard was more likely to win. But the more items a winner bids on, the more likely they are to lose more items than they win. The balance was either bidding on a few items that she needed or bidding on all the items she wanted.

Kevin had tagged a few items: a beaver armor set, some boots, a sailor costume, some beaver blasters, and a couple of rings. Sarah tagged a beaver skin top hat, a beaver pistol, and a beaver watch. Large Soup Bowl, on the other hand, had tagged a lot of items. There were so many item tags, her eyes just blurred over the options.

She again felt lost. For the most part, it was mostly beaver droppings. Nothing she felt really suited her. That was until she saw the Beaver School uniform. The educational outfit is a five-piece set with shoes, pants with buckle, purple dress shirt, gray sweater vest, and a black tie. Their purple was not quite the same as Bishop’s, but in Jennifer’s excited eyes, it was close enough. Not wanting to waste her bonuses, she tagged each item of the school uniform.

Jennifer looked through the rest of the drops and ended up putting her name on two more items that caught her fancy. One was a ring that boosted her mana pool, and the other was a compass that would boost her navigation skill. There were piles of coins as well because there were a lot of piles of money. Normally, only one or two people tagged that loot, but the larger piles of coins had more tags. She guessed that more tags meant less chance of winning, and that was why people spread out their tags a bit more when it was just money.

The snoring coming from her sling was loud enough to split the noise of the crowd in front of the scoreboard. Kevin was roaming around the park sniffing people. Her armor spider was on her shoulder. Jennifer found a bench to sit on. She was trying not to cry. The battle was scary. She saw people kill or be killed. The strangest thing for her was that they did not stay dead.

She remembered the mayor telling her that parallels would almost always come back. Apparently, at least in the paper raids, she would come back too. But the difference between knowing and experiencing was staggering. Jennifer put her face in her hands, the battle still fresh in her mind. She had let Kevin down. She had let Woozle down. She had let so many people down. They had fallen when she could have healed them. She had let Woozle down so much that he was scared of being discarded. She constantly reminded herself that the beavers were not really alive. They were just copies. But she was just a copy too.

Her hands were covered in wetness, but she could not stop the tears. She just wanted to go to school, learn, and make the world a better place. But less than an hour ago, she was fighting armored space beavers. She did not know what she had expected the battle to be like. It could have been anything, but it was not just good guys fighting bad guys. The explosions, the magic being cast, and so many parallels and fragments hurting and being hurt It was all too much.

She was sobbing uncontrollably, her mind went to her current situation. She felt worse that she had no idea where she was going to be sleeping tonight. This world was what it was, and it hurt.

Her hands moved because Kevin nosed them aside. A big, wet wolf tongue licked her face. She went from crying uncontrollably to uncontrolled giggling. The wolf kiss was the best thing in the world at that moment. When she was able to get a hold of herself, Kevin's goblin burst out laughing as she took in what the goblin was wearing.

The poor thing was wearing a blue and white sailor suit and was not looking happy about it. The goblin’s face was set in a frown, her ears were not as perky as before, her shoulders drooped. Jennifer moved off her seat onto her knees and pulled the goblin into a hug as she laughed. The goblin flailed around for a moment, but after a few heartbeats, the goblin returned the hug.